Cuba

Jack Grafton [7]

Stephen Coonts

St. Martin's Paperbacks (2009)

Rating:

★★★☆☆

Tags:

Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, History, Military, Fiction - Espionage, Political, Thriller, Espionage, Action Adventure, Intrigue, American Mystery Suspense Fiction, Adventure Fiction, Cuba, Grafton; Jake (Fictitious character), Coonts; Stephen - Prose Criticism, Naval, Carmellini; Tommy (Fictitious character), Caribbean West Indies

Fictionttt Generalttt Suspensettt Thrillersttt Historyttt Militaryttt Fiction - Espionagettt Politicalttt Thrillerttt Espionagettt Action Adventurettt Intriguettt American Mystery Suspense Fictionttt Adventure Fictionttt Cubattt Grafton; Jake (Fictitious character)ttt Coonts; Stephen - Prose Criticismttt Navalttt Carmellini; Tommy (Fictitious character)ttt Caribbean West Indiesttt

SUMMARY:

Stephen Coonts' bestelling novels takes readers into the heart of harrowing, pulse-pounding action, whether on land, on sea, or in the air. Now, this master of full-tilt, blockbuster suspense turns into a lush setting 90 miles from U.S. soil. In Cuba, Fidel Castro lies dying. Human sharks are circling. And one man has his finger on the trigger of a weapon that will change everything...Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a shipment of nerve gas being transferred for a top-secret U.S. stockpile at Guantanamo Bay. But a power struggle inside Cuba has ignited an explosive plot and turned a horrific new weapon on the U.S. Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a new generation of American aircraft and fly blind into the heart of an island that is about to blow--and take the whole world with it...

Cuba

Book Jacket

Series: Jack Grafton [7]

Rating:

Tags: Adventure fiction, Coonts; Stephen - Prose & Criticism, Naval, Action & Adventure, Cuba, Fiction - Espionage, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Caribbean & West Indies, Political, General, Grafton; Jake (Fictitious character), Suspense, Espionage, Carmellini; Tommy (Fictitious character), Thrillers, Military, Fiction, Intrigue, Thriller, History

SUMMARY: Stephen Coonts' bestelling novels takes readers into the heart of harrowing, pulse-pounding action, whether on land, on sea, or in the air. Now, this master of full-tilt, blockbuster suspense turns into a lush setting 90 miles from U.S. soil. In Cuba, Fidel Castro lies dying. Human sharks are circling. And one man has his finger on the trigger of a weapon that will change everything...Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a shipment of nerve gas being transferred for a top-secret U.S. stockpile at Guantanamo Bay. But a power struggle inside Cuba has ignited an explosive plot and turned a horrific new weapon on the U.S. Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a new generation of American aircraft and fly blind into the heart of an island that is about to blow--and take the whole world with it...

Cuba

Book Jacket

Series: Jack Grafton [7]

Rating:

Tags: Adventure fiction, Coonts; Stephen - Prose & Criticism, Naval, Action & Adventure, Cuba, Fiction - Espionage, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Caribbean & West Indies, Political, General, Grafton; Jake (Fictitious character), Suspense, Espionage, Carmellini; Tommy (Fictitious character), Thrillers, Military, Fiction, Intrigue, Thriller, History

SUMMARY: Stephen Coonts' bestelling novels takes readers into the heart of harrowing, pulse-pounding action, whether on land, on sea, or in the air. Now, this master of full-tilt, blockbuster suspense turns into a lush setting 90 miles from U.S. soil. In Cuba, Fidel Castro lies dying. Human sharks are circling. And one man has his finger on the trigger of a weapon that will change everything...Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a shipment of nerve gas being transferred for a top-secret U.S. stockpile at Guantanamo Bay. But a power struggle inside Cuba has ignited an explosive plot and turned a horrific new weapon on the U.S. Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a new generation of American aircraft and fly blind into the heart of an island that is about to blow--and take the whole world with it...

Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

Book Jacket

None

STEVEN COONTS

CUBA

Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a

shipment of nerve gas being transferred from a

top-secret U.s. stockpile at

Guantanamot Bay. But a power struggle inside

cuba has ignited an explosive plot and

turned a horrific new weapon on the U.s.

Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a

new generation of American aircraft and fly blind in

to the heart of an island that is about to blow -- and take

the whole world with x*

St. Martin's Paperbacks

NOTE:

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be

aware that this book is stolen property. It was

reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the

publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has

received any payment for this "stripped book."

CUBA

Copyright [*copygg'1999 by Stephen Coonts.

Ml

rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or

reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

permission except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles or reviews.

For information address Still Martin's Press, 175

Fifth Avenue, New York, N.y.

10010.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number

ISBN: 0-312-97139-7

Printed in the United States of America .

St. Martin's Press hardcover edition still

August 1999 St. Martin's Paperbacks

edition still May 2000

Still Martin's Paperbacks are published by St.

Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New

York, N.y. 10010.

To Tyler

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In theory a speculative work of adventure

fiction has the same requirement for technical

accuracy as a story about space aliens set in the

thirtieth century, yet as a practical matter

many readers demand that this author at least stay in

reality's neighborhood while spinning his tales.

For their aid in contributing to technical accuracy the

author wishes to thank Michael R. Gaul,

Captain Sam Sayers USN Ret., Mary

Sayers, Captain Andrew Salkeld USMC, and

Colonel Emmett Willard USA Ret., as

well as V-22 experts Colonel Nolan

Schmidt USMC, Lieutenant Colonel Doug

Isleib USMC, and Donald L. Byrne

Jr. As usual, the author has taken liberties

in some technical areas in the interest of readability

and pacing.

Emestina Archilla Pabon de Pascal devoted

many hours to helping the author capture the flavor

of Cuba and earned the author's heartfelt thanks.

A very special thank-you goes to the author's

wife, Deborah Buell Coonts, whose wise

counsel, plot suggestions, and endless hours of

editing added immeasurably to the quality of this tale.

Cultivo una rosa blanca, Enjulio como en

enero, Para el amigo sincere Que me da

su mano franca.

y para el cruel que me arranca El

corazon con que vivo, Cardo ni oruga

cultivo; Cultivo la rosa blanca.

Jose Marti

I grow a white rose

In July the same as January,

For the sincere friend

Who gives me his open hand. And for the cruel one who

pulls me

away

from the dreams for which I live,

I grow neither weeds nor thistles,

I grow the white rose.

V8I9

PROLOGUE

His hair was white, close-cropped, and his skin

deeply tanned. He wore only sandals,

shorts, and a paper-thin rag of a shirt with three

missing buttons that flapped loosely on his

spare, bony frame. A piece of twine around his

waist held up his shorts, which were also several sizes

too large. His dark eyes were restless and bright behind his

steelframed glasses, which rested on a large,

fleshy nose.

The walk between the house and barn winded him, so he

sat on a large stone in a bit of shade cast by a

cluster of palm trees and contemplated the gauzy

blue mountains on the horizon and the puffy clouds

floating along on the trade wind.

A man couldn't have found a better place to live out

his life, he thought. He loved this view, this

serenity, this peace. When he had- come here as a young

man in his twenties he had known then that he had found

paradise. Nothing in the first twenty-six years of his

life had prepared him for the pastel colors, the

warmth and brilliance of the sun, the kiss of the eternal

breeze, the aroma of tropical flowers that filled

his head and caressed his soul.

Cuba was everything that Russia wasn't. After a

lifetime in Siberia, he had wanted to get down and

kiss the earth when he first saw this land. He had

actually done that, several times in fact, when he had

had too much to drink. He drank a lot in those

days, years and years ago, when he was very young.

When the chance to stay came he had leaped at it,

begged for it.

"After a time you will regret your choiceea"...the colonel

said. "You will miss Mother Russia, the sound of

Russian voices, the young wife you left

behind...."

"She is young, intelligent, ambitious.;.."...he

had replied, thinking of Olga's cold anger when

informed she could not accompany him to Cuba. She was

angry at

him

for having the good fortune to go, not angry at the state

for sending him. She had never in her life been

angry at the state for anything whatsoever, no

matter how bleak her life or prospectsshe

didn't have it in her. Olga was a good communist

woman, communist to the core.

"She will be told that you have died in an accident. You

will be proclaimed a socialist hero. Of course,

you may never write to her, to your parents, to your

brother, tor anyone in the Soviet Union.

All will believe you dead. For them, you will be dead."

"I will have another life here."

"These are not your peopleea"...the colonel observed pointedly

a bit later in the discussion, but he didn't listen.

"Olga is a patriotea"...he remembered telling the

colonel. "She loves the state with all her soul.

She will enjoy being a widow of a socialist hero.

She will find another man and life will go on."

So he stayed, and they told her that he was

dead. Whether she remarried or stayed single, got

that transfer to Moscow that she dreamed about, had the children

she didn't want, he didn't know.

Looking at the blue mountains, smelling the wind,

he tried to conjure up the picture of her in his mind

that he had carried all these years. Olga had been

young then so he always remembered her that way. She

wouldn't be young now, of course, if she still lived; she

would be hefty, with iron gray hair which she would wear

pulled back in a bun.

His mind was blank. Try as he might, he couldn't

remember what Olga looked like.

comPerhaps that was just as well.

He had found a woman here, a chocolate brown

woman who cooked and washed for him, lived with him,

slept with him and bore him two children. Their son died

years ago before he reached manhood, and their daughter

was married and had children of her own. His daughter cooked

for him now, checked to make sure he was all right.

Her

face he could remember. Her smile, her touch, the

warmth of her skin, her whisper in the night...

She had been dead two years next month.

He would join her soon. He knew that. He had

lost seventy pounds in the last twelve

months and knew that something was wrong with him, but he

didn't know just what.

The village doctor examined him and shook her

head. "Your body is wearing out, my friendea"...the

doctor said. "There is nothing I can do."

He had had a wonderful life here, in this place in

the sun in paradise.

He coughed, spat in the dirt, waited for the spasms

to pass.

After a while he slowly levered himself erect and

resumed his journey toward the barn.

He opened the board door and stepped into the cool

darkness within. Little puffs of dust arose from every

footfall. The dirt on the floor had long ago

turned to powder.

The only light came from sunbeams shining through the

cracks in the barn's siding. The siding was merely

boards placed on the wooden frame of the building

to keep out the wind and rain ... and prying eyes.

In truth the building wasn't really a barn at

all, though the corners were routinely used to store

farm machinery and fodder for the animals and occasionally

to get a sensitive animal in out of the sun.

Primarily the building existed to hide the large,

round concrete slab in the center of the floor.

The building was constructed in such a way that there were

no

beams or wooden supports of any kind above the

slab. The roof above the slab was merely boards can-

tilevered upward until they touched at the apex of the

building.

The white-haired old man paused now to look

upward at the pencil-thin shafts of sunlight which

illuminated the dusty air like so many laser beams.

The old man, however, knew nothing about lasers, had

never even seen one: lasers came after he had

completed hjs schooling and training.

One corner of the building contained an enclosed

room. The door to the room was locked. Now the old

man fished in his pocket for a key, unlocked the

door, and stepped inside. On the other side of the

door he used the key to engage the lock, then

thoughtfully placed the key in his pocket.

He was the only living person with a key to that lock.

If he collapsed in here, no one could get in

to him. The door and the walls of this room were made of

very hard steel, steel sheathed in rough, unfinished

gray wood.

Well, that was a risk he had agreed to run all

those years ago.

Thirty-five ... no, thirty-eight years ago.

A long time.

There was a light switch by the door, and the old man

reached for it automatically. He snapped it on.

Before him were stairs leading dewji.

With one hand on the rail, he went down the stairs,

now worn from the tread of his feet.

This door, these stairs ... his whole life. Every day

... checking, greasing, testing, repairing ...

Once rats got in down here. He had never found

a hole that would grant them entrance, though he had

looked carefully. Still, they had gotten in and eaten

insulation off wiring, chewed holes in boards,

gnawed at pipes and fittings. He managed

to kill three with poison and carried the bodies out.

Several others died in places he couldn't get to and

stank up the place while their carcasses

decomposed.

God, when had that been? Years and years ago ...

He checked the poison trays, made sure they were

full.

He checked consoles, visually inspected the

conduits, turned on the electrical power and

checked the warning lights, the circuits.

Every week he ran a complete set of

electrical checks on the circuitry, checking every

wire in the place, all the connections and tubes,

resistors and capacitors. Occasionally a tube

would'be burned out, and he would have to replace it. The

irony of burning up difficult-to-obtain

electrical parts testing them had ceased to amuse him

years ago. Now he only worried that the parts would

not be available, somewhere, when he needed them.

He wondered what they were going to do when he became

unable to do this work. When he died. Someone was going to have

to take care of this installation or it would go to rack and

ruin. He had told the Cuban major that the last

time he came around, which was last month, when the

technicians came to install the new warhead.

Lord, what a job that had been. He was the only one

who knew how to remove the old nuclear warhead, and

he had had to figure out how to install the new one.

No one would tell him anything about it, but he had

to figure out how it had to be installed.

"You must let me train somebodyea"...he said to the

major, "show someone how to take care of this thing. If

you leave it sit without maintenance for just a few months

in this climate, it will be junk."

Yes, yes.-The major knew that. So did the people in

Havana.

"And I am a sick man. Cancer, the doctor

says."

The major understood. He had been told about the

disease. He was sorry to hear it.

"This thing should be in a museum nowea"...he told the

major, who as usual acted very military, looked

at this, tapped on that, told him to change a

lightbulb that had just burned outhe always changed dead

bulbs immediately if he had good bulbs to put inthen

went away looking thoughtful.

The major always looked thoughtful. He hadn't an

idea about how the thing worked, about the labor and cunning

required to keep it operational, and he never asked

questions. Just nosed around pretending he knew what he

was looking at, occasionally delivered spare parts,

listened to what the old man had to say, then went

away, not to reappear for another three months.

Before the major there had been a colonel. Before the

colonel another major... In truth, he

didn't get to know these occasional visitors very

well and soon forgot about them.

Every now and then he would get a visitor that he could not

forget. Fidel Castro had come three times. His

first visit occurred while the Russians were still here,

during construction. He looked at everything,

asked many questions, didn't pretend to know anything.

Castro returned when the site was operational.

Several generals had accompanied him. The old

man could still remember Castro's green uniform, the

beard, the everpresent cigar.

The last time he came was eight or ten years ago,

after the Soviet Union collapsed, when spare

parts were so difficult to obtain. That time he had

asked questions, listened carefully to the answers, and the

necessary parts and supplies had somehow been delivered.

But official visits were rare events, even by the

thoughtful major? Most of the time the old man was left

in peace and solitude to do his job as he saw fit.

Truly, the work was pleasanthe had had a good life,

much better than anything he could have aspired to as a

technician in the Soviet Rocket Forces,

doomed to some lonely, godforsaken, windswept

frozen patch of Central Asia.

The old man left the power on to the consolehe would

begin the tests in just a bit, but first he opened the

fireproof stee] door to reveal a set of stairs

leading downward. Thirty-two steps down to the

bottom of the silo.

The sight of the missile resting erect on its

launcher

always took his breath for a moment. There it sat, ready

to be fired.

He climbed the ladder to the platform adjacent to the

guidance compartment. Took out the six screws that

sealed the access plate, pried it off, and used a

flashlight to inspect the wiring inside. Well, the

internal wiring inside the guidance unit was getting

old, no question about it. It would have to be replaced

soon.

Should he replace the guidance wiringwhich would take

two weeks of intense, concentrated effortor should he

leave it for his successor?

He would think about the work involved for a few more

weeks. If he didn't feel up to it then, it would

have to wait. His health was deteriorating at a more or

less steady pace, and he could only do so much.

If they didn't send a replacement for him soon,

he wouldn't have enough time to teach the new man what he

needed to know. To expect them to find someone who already

knew the nuts and bolts of a Scud I missile

was ridiculous. These missiles hadn't been

manufactured in thirty years, were inaccurate,

obsolete artifacts of a bygone age.

It was equally ridiculous to expect someone

to remove this missile from the silo and install

a new, modern one. Cuba was poor, even poorer

than Russia had been when he was growing up.

Cuba could not afford modern missiles and the new,

postcommunist Russia certainly could not afford

to give them away.

Not even to aim at Atlanta.

Those were the targeting coordinates.

He wasn't supposed to know the target, of course,

but that rule was another example of military

stupidity. He took care of the missile,

maintained it, tested it, and if necessary would someday fire

it at the enemy. Yet the powers that be didn't want

him to know where the missile was aimed.

So when he was working on the guidance module he had

checked the coordinates that were programmed in,

STEPHEN COONTS

compared them to a map in the village school.

Atlanta!

The gyros in the guidance module were 1950's

technology, and Soviet to boot, with the usual

large, forgiving military tolerances. No one ever

claimed the guidance system in a Scud I was a

precision instrument, but it was adequate. The

guidance system would get the missile into the proper

neighborhood, more or less, then the warhead

would do the rest.

The old warhead had an explosive force equal

to one hundred thousand tons" equivalent of

TNT. It wouldn't flatten all of

AtlantaAtlanta was a mighty big place and

getting biggerbut it would make a hell of a dent in

Georgia. Somewhere in Georgia. With luck, the

chances were pretty good that the missile would hit

Georgia.

The new warhead... well, he knew nothing about it.

It was a completely different design than the old

one, although it weighed exactly the same and also

seemed to be rigged for an airburst, but of course

there was no way for him to determine the altitude.

Not that it mattered. The missile had never been

fired and probably never would be. Its

capabilities were mere speculation.

The old man took a last look at the interior

of the control module, replaced the inspection plate

and inserted the screws, then carefully tightened each

one. Then he inspected the cables that led to the

missile and their connectors. From the platform he could

also see the hydraulic pistons and arms that would

lift the cap on the silo, if and when. No leaks

today.

Carefully, holding on with both hands, he climbed

down the ladder to the floor of the silo, which was just a

grate over a large hole, the fire tube,

designed so the fiery rocket exhaust would not cook

the missile before it rose from the silo.

The rats may have got into the silo when he had the

cap open, he thought. Yes, that was probably it.

They got in-

side, found nothing to eat, began chewing on wire

insulation to stay alive.

But the rats were dead.

His woman was dead, and he soon would be.

The missile...

He patted the side of the missile, then began

climbing the stairs to the control room to do his

electrical checks.

Nobody gave a damn about the missile, except

him and maybe the major. The major didn't really

care all that muchthe missile was just a job for him.

The missile had been the old man's life. He

had traded life in Russia as a slave in the

Strategic Rocket Forces for a life in

paradise as a slave to a missile that would never be

fired.

He thought about Russia as he climbed the

stairs.

You make your choices going through life,

he told himself,

or the state makes the choices for you. Or God

does. Whichever, a man must accept life as it

conies.

He sat down at the console in the control room,

ran his fingers over the buttons and switches.

At least he had never had to fire the missile.

After all these years taking care of it, that would be

somewhat like committing suicide.

Could he do it? Could he fire the missile if

ordered to do so?

When he first came to Cuba he had thought deeply

about that question. Of course he had taken an oath

to obey disand all that, but he never knew if he really

could.

Still didn't.

And was going to die not knowing.

The old man laughed aloud. He liked the sound so

much he laughed again, louder.

After all, the joke was really on the communists, who

sent him here. Amazingly, after all the pain and

suffering they caused tens of millions of people all

over the planet, they had given him a good

life.

He laughed again because the joke was a good one.

Guantanamo Bay, on the southeast coast of the

island of Cuba, is the prettiest spot on the

planet, thought Rear Admiral Jake

Grafton, USN.

He was leaning on the railing on top of the carrier

United States's

superstructure, her island, a place the sailors

called Steel Beach. Here off-duty crew

members gathered to soak up some rays and do a few

calisthenics. Jake Grafton was not normally a

sun worshiper; at sea he rarely visited

Steel Beach, preferring to arrange his day so that he

could spend at least a half hour running on the

flight deck. Today he was dressed in gym shorts,

T-shirt, and tennis shoes, but he had yet

to make it to the flight deck.

Gra bar ton was a trim, fit fifty-three

years old, a trifle over six feet tall, with

short hair turning gray, gray eyes, and a nose

slightly too large for his face. On one temple

was a scar, an old, faded white slash where a

bullet had gouged him years ago.

People who knew him regarded him as the

epitome of a competent naval officer. Grafton

always put his brain in gear before he opened his mouth,

never lost his cool, and he never lost sight of the

goals he wanted to accomplish. In short, he was

one fine naval officer and his superiors knew it,

which was why he was in charge of this carrier group lying in

Guantanamo Bay.

The carrier and her escorts had been running

exercises in the Caribbean for the last week. Today the

carrier was anchored in the mouth of the bay, with two of

her larger consorts anchored nearby. To seaward

three- destroyers

steamed back and forth, their radars probing the skies.

A set of top-secret orders had brought the

carrier group here.

Jake Grafton thought about those orders as he

studied the two cargo ships lying against the pier through a

set of navy binoculars. The ships were small,

less than eight thousand tons each; larger ships

drew too much water to get against the pier in this

harbor. They were

Nuestra Sefiora de Colon

and

Astarte.

The order bringing those ships here had not come from

some windowless Pentagon cubbyhole; it was no memo

drafted by an anonymous civil servant or

faceless staff weenie. Oh, no. The order that had

brought those ships to this pier on the southern coast of

Cuba had come from the White House, the top of the

food chain.

Jake Grafton looked past the cargo ships at

the warehouses and barracks and administration buildings

baking in the warm Cuban sun.

A paradise, that was the word that described Cuba.

A paradise inhabited by communists. And

Guantanamo Bay was a lonely little American

outpost adhering to the underside of this communist island, the

asshole of Cuba some called it.

Rear Admiral Grafton could see the cranes

moving, the white containers being swung down to the pier

from

Astarte,

which had arrived several hours ago. Forklifts took

the steel boxes to a hurricane-proof warehouse,

where no doubt the harbormaster was stacking them three

or four deep in neat, tidy military rows.

The containers were packages designed to hold

chemical and biological weapons, artillery

shells and bombs. A trained crew was here

to load the weapons stored inside the

hurricane-proof warehouse into the containers, which would

then be loaded aboard the ship at the pier and

transported to the United States, where the warheads

would be destroyed.

Loading the weapons into the containers and getting the

containers stowed aboard the second ship was going

to take at least a week, probably longer. The

first ship,

Nuestra Sefiora de Colon,

Our Lady of Col less-than 5n, had been a

week loading, and would be ready to sail this evening.

Jake Grafton's job was to provide military

cover for the loading operation with this carrier battle

group.

His orders raised more questions than they answered. The

weapons had been stored in that warehouse for years why

remove them now? Why did the removal operation

require military cover? What was the threat?

Admiral Grafton put down his binoculars and

did fifty push-ups on the steel deck while he

thought about chemical and biological weapons.

Cheaper and even more lethal than atomic weapons,

they were the weapons of choice for Third World nations

seeking to acquire a credible military

presence. Chemical weapons were easier to control

than biological weapons, yet more expensive

to deliver. Hands down, the cheapest and deadliest

weapon known to man was the biological one.

Almost any nation, indeed, almost anyone with a credit

card and two thousand square feet of laboratory

space, could construct a biological weapon hi a

matter of weeks from inexpensive, off-the-shelf

technology. Years ago Saddam Hussein got

into the biological warfare business with anthrax

cultures purchased from an American mail-order

supply house and delivered via overnight mail.

Ten grams of anthrax properly dispersed can kill

as many people as a ton of the nerve gas Sarin. What was

that estimate Jake saw recently"...one hundred

kilograms of anthrax delivered by an efficient

aerosol generator on a large urban target would

kill from two to six times as many people as a

one-megaton nuclear device.

Of course, Jake Grafton reflected,

anthrax was merely one of over one hundred and

sixty known biological warfare agents. There were

others far deadlier but equally cheap to manufacture

and disperse. Still, obtaining a culture was merely a

first step; the journey from culture dishes

to

a reliable weapon that could be safely stored and

accurately employedanything other than a spray

tankwas long, expensive, and fraught with engineering

challenges.

Jake Grafton had had a few classified

briefings about CBW-WHICH stood for chemical and

biological warfare but he knew little more than diswas

available in the public press. These weren't the

kinds of secrets that rank-and-file naval

officers had a need to know. Since the Kennedy

administration insisted on developing other military

response capabilities besides nuclear warfare,

the United States had researched, developed, and

manufactured large stores of nerve gas, mustard

gas, incapacitants, and defoliants. Research

on biological agents went forward in tandem at

Fort Detrick, Maryland, and ultimately led to the

manufacture of weapons at Pine Bluff

Arsenal in Arkansas. These highly classified

programs were undertaken with little debate and almost no

publicity. Of course the Soviets had their own

classified programs. Only when accidents

occurredlike the accidental slaughter of 6,000

sheep thirty miles from the Dugway

Proving Ground in Utah during the late

1960's, or the deaths of sixty-six people at

Sverdlovsk in 1979 did the public get a

glimpse into this secret world.

Nerve gases were loaded into missile and rocket

warheads, bombs, land mines, and artillery shells.

Biological agents were loaded into missile

warheads, cluster bombs, and spray tanks and

dispensers mounted on aircraft.

Historically nations used chemical or

biological weapons against an enemy only when the

enemy lacked the means to retaliate in kind. The

threat of massive American retaliation had

deterred Saddam Hussein from the use of chemical

and biological weapons in the 1991 Gulf War,

yet these days deterrence was politically incorrect.

In 1993 the United States signed the

Chemical Weapons Convention, thereby agreeing

to remove chemical and biological weapons from its

stockpiles.

The U.s. military had been in no hurry

to comply with the treaty, of course, because without the threat of

retalia-

STEPHEN COONTS

tion there was no way to prevent these weapons

being used against American troops and civilians.

The waiting was over, apparently. The politicians

in Washington were getting their way: the United

States would not retaliate against an enemy with

chemical or biological weapons even if

similar weapons were used to slaughter Americans.

When Jake Grafton finished his push-ups and

stood, the staff operations officer, Commander Toad

Tarkington, was there with a towel. Toad was slightly

above medium height, deeply tanned, and had a

mouthful of perfect white teeth that were visible when he

smiled or laughed, which he often did. The admiral

wiped his face on the towel, then picked up the

binoculars and once again focused them on the cargo

ships.

"Glad the decision to destroy those things wasn't one

I had to makeea"...Toad Tarkington said.

"There are a lot of things in this world that I'm glad

I'm not responsible forea"...Jake replied.

"Why now, Admiral? And why does the ordnance

crowd need a battle group to guard them?"

"What I'd like to knowea"...Jake Grafton mused,

"is why those damned things were stored here in the first

place. If we knew that, then maybe we would know

why the brass sent us here to stand guard."

"Think Castro has chemical or biological

weapons, sir?"

"I suspect he does, or someone with a lot of

stars once thought he might. If so, our weapons were

probably put here to discourage friend Castro from

waving his about. But what is the threat to removing them?"

"Got to be terrorists, sirea"...Toad said.

"Castro would be delighted to see them go. An

attack from the Cuban Army is the last thing on

earth I would expect. But terrorists maybe they

plan to do a raid into here, steal some of the darn things."

"Maybeea"...Jake said, sighing.

"I guess I don't understand why we are taking them

home for destructionea"...Toad added. "The

administration got

the political credit for signing the Chemical

Weapons Treaty. If we keep our weapons,

we can still credibly threaten massive retaliation if

someone threatens us."

"Pretty hard to agree to destroy the things, not do

it, and then fulminate against other countries who

don't destroy theirs."

"Hypocrisy never slowed down a

politicianea"...Toad said sourly. "I guess I

just never liked the idea of getting naked when

everyone else at the party is fully dressed."

"Who in Washington would ever authorize the use of

CBW weapons"..."...Jake muttered. "Can you see a

buttoneddown, blow-dried, politically correct

American politician ever signing such an

order?"

Both men stood with their elbows on the railing looking

at the cargo ships. After a bit the admiral

passed Toad the binoculars.

"Wonder if the National Security Agency is

keeping this area under surveillance with

satellites"..."...Toad mused.

"No one in Washington is going to tell

us,"

the admiral said matter-of-factly. He pointed

to one of the two Aegis cruisers anchored nearby.

"Leave that cruiser anchored here for the next few

days. She can cover the base perimeter with her guns

if push comes to shove. Have the cruiser keep her

gun crews on five-minute alert, ammo on the

trays, no liberty. After three days she can pull

the hook and join us, and another cruiser can come

anchor here."

- "Yes, sir."

"There's a marine battalion landing team

aboard

Kearsarge,

which is supposed to rendezvous with us tomorrow. I want

Kearsarge

to stay with

United States.

We'll put both ships in a race-track

pattern about fifty miles south of here, outside

Cuban territorial waters, and get on with our

exercises. But we'll keep a weather eye peeled

on this base."

"What about the base commander, sir? He may know more

about this than we do."

"Get on the ship-to-shore net and invite him to have

dinner with me tonight. Send a helo in to pick him

up."

STEPHEN COONTS

"Sir, your instructions specifically directed that

you maintain a business-as-usual security

posture."

"I rememberea"...Jake said dryly.

"Of course, "business as usual" is an

ambiguous phraseea"...Toad mused. "If anything

goes wrong you can be blamed for not doing enough or doing

too much, whichever way the wind blows."

Jake Grafton snorted. "If a bunch of

wild-eyed terrorists lay hands on those warheads,

Tarkington, you and I will be fried, screwed, and

tattooed regardless of what we did or didn't

do. We'll have to will our bodies to science."

"What about the CO ef the cruiser, Admiral?

What do we tell him?"

"Draft a top-secret message directing him

to keep his people ready to shoot."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Nuestra Senora de Colon

is sailing this evening for Norfolk. Have a destroyer

accompany her until she is well out of Cuban

waters."

"Yo."...Toad was making notes on a small memo

pad he kept in his hip pocket.

"And have the weather people give me a cloud-cover

prediction for the next five days, or as far out as

they can. I want to try to figure out what, if

anything, the satellites might be seeing."

"You mean, are they keeping an eye on the Cuban

military?"

"Or terrorists. Whoever."

"I'll take care of it, sir."

"I'm going to run a couple laps around the

deckea"...Jake Grafton added.

"May I suggest putting a company of marines

ashore to do a security survey of the base

perimeter? Strictly routine."

"That sounds feasibleea"...Jake Grafton said. "Tonight

let's ask the base commander what he thinks."

backslash

CUBA 17

"Terrorists or the Cuban Armywanna bet ten

bucks? Take your pick."

"I only bet on sure things, sir, like

prizefights and Super Bowls, occasionally a

cockroach race."

"You're wise beyond your years, Toadea"...the admiral

tossed over his shoulder as he headed for the hatch.

"That's what I tell Ritaea"...Toad shot back.

Rita Moravia was his wife.

Jake Grafton didn't hear the rest of

Toad's comment. "And wisdom is a heavy burden,

let me tell you. Real heavy. Sorta like

biological warheads."...He put the binoculars

to his eyes and carefully studied the naval base.

The night was hot and sultry, with lightning playing

on the horizon. From his seat on"...the top row of the

stadium bleachers Hector Juan de

Dios Sedano kept an eye on the lightning, but

the storms seemed to be moving north.

Everyone else in the stadium was watching the game.

Hector's younger brother, Juan Manuel

"Ocho"...Sedano, was the local team's star pitcher.

The eighth child of his parents, the Cuban fans had

long ago dubbed him El Ocho. The family

reduced the name to "Ocho."

Tonight his fastball seemed on fire and his curve

exceptional. The crowd cheered with every pitch. Twice

the umpire called for the ball to examine it. Each

time he handed it back to the catcher, who tossed it

back to the mound as the fans hooted delightedly.

At the middle of the seventh inning Ocho had faced just

twenty-two batters. Only one man had gotten

to first base, and that on a bloop single just beyond the

fingertips of the second baseman. The local team

had scored four runs.

Hector Sedano leaned against the board fence behind him

and applauded his brother as he walked from the mound.

Ocho looked happy, relaxedthe confident, honest

gaze of a star athlete who knows what he can do.

As Hector clapped, he spotted a woman coming

through the crowd toward him. She smiled as she met his

eyes, then took a seat beside him.

Here on the back bench Hector was about ten feet

fro'm the nearest fans. The board fence behind him was

the wall of the stadium, fifteen feet aboveeathe

ground.

"Did your friends come with you"..."...he asked, scanning the

crowd.

"Oh, yes, the usual twoea"...she said, but didn't

bother to point to them.

Sedano found one of the men settling into a seat five

rows down and over ab* thirty feet. A few

seconds later he saw the other standing near the

entrance where the woman had entered the stadium. These

two were her bodyguards.

Her name was Mercedes. She was the widow of one of

Hector's brothers and the current mistress of

Fidel Castro.

"How is

MimaThat'

Tomorrow was Hector's mother's birthday, and the clan was

gathering.

"Fine. Looking forward to seeing everyone."

"I used the birthday as an excuse. They don't

want me to leave the residence these days."

"How bad is he?"

"Estd tojodio.

He's done in. One doctor said two weeks,

one three. The cancer is spreading rapidly."

"What do you think?"

"I think he will live a while longer, but every night

is more difficult. I sit with him. When he is

sleeping he stops breathing for as much as half a

minute before he resumes. I watch the clock,

counting the seconds, wondering if he will breathe again."

The.home team's center fielder stepped up to the

plate. Ocho was the second batter. Standing in the

warm-up circle with a bat in his hands, he scanned

the faces in the crowd. Finally he made eye

contact with Hector, nodded his head just enough to be seen,

then concentrated on his warm-up swings.

"Who knows about this"..."...Hector asked Merc"...des.

"Only a few people. Alejo is holding the lid

on. The doctors are with him around the

clock."...Alejo Vargas was the minister of the

ulterior. His ministry's Department of

STEPHEN COONTS

State Securitythe secret policeinvestigated

and suppressed opposition and dissent.

"We have waited a long timeea"...Hector mused.

"Ese cabron,

we should have killed Vargas

years"...agoea"...Mercedes said, and smiled at a woman

who turned around to look at her. *

"We cannot win with his blood on our hands."

"Alejo suspects you, I think."

"I am just a Jesuit priest, a teacher."

Mercedes snorted.

"He suspects everyoneea"...Hector added.

"Don't be a fool."

El Ocho stepped into the batter's box to the roar of the

crowd. He waggled the bat, cocked it, waited

expectantly. His stance was perfect, his weight

balanced, he was tense and readywhen he batted

Hector could see Ocho's magnificent talent.

He looked so ... perfect.

Ocho let the first ball go by ... outside.

The second pitch was low.

The opposing pitcher walked around the mound, examined

the ball, toed the rubber.

The fact was Ocho was a better batter than he was

a pitcher. Oh, he was a great pitcher, but when he

had a bat in his hands al caret his gifts were on

display; the reflexes, the eyesight, the

physique, the ability to wait for his pitch....

The third pitch was a strike, belt-high, and Ocho

got around on it and connected solidly. The

ball rose into the warm, humid air and flew as if

it had wings until it cleared the center field fence

by a good margin.

"He caught it perfectlyea"...Mercedes said,

admiration in her voice.

Ocho trotted the bases while everyone in the

bleachers applauded. The opposing pitcher stood on

the mound shaking his head in disgust.

Ocho's manager was the first to greet him as he

trotted toward the dugout. He pounded his star on the

back, pumped his hand, beamed proudly, almost like a

father.

"S

CUBA 21

"What else

is

happening"..."...Hector asked.

"The government has signed the casino agreement.

Miramar, Havana, Varadero and Santiago.

The consortium will provide fifty percent of the cost

of an airport in Santiago."

"They have been negotiating for whatthree years?"

"Almost that."

"Any sense of urgency on the part of the Cubans?"

"I sense none. The Americans were happy

with the deal, so they signed."

"Who are these Americans?"

"I thought they were Nevada casino people, but there were people in

the background pulling strings, criminals, I think.

They wanted assurances on prostitution and

narcotics."

The Cuban government had been negotiating

agreements for foreign investment and development for

years, mainly with Canadian and European

companies. Tourism was now the largest industry in

Cuba, bringing 1.5 million tourists a year to the

island and keeping the economy afloat with hard

currency. Now the Cuban government was openly

negotiating with American companiesea.with all deals

contingent upon the ending of the American economic

embargo. Fidel Castro believed that he could put

political pressure upon the American government

to end the embargo by dangling development rights in

front of American capitalists. Hector

Sedano thought Fidel understood the Americans.

"The tobacco negotiator, Chancehow is he

progressing?"

"He is talking to your brother Maximo. Then he

is supposed to see Vargas. Tobacco will

replace sugarcane as Cuba's big

crop, he says. The cigarettes will be

manufactured here and marketed worldwide under

American brands. The Americans will finance

everything; Cuba will get a fifty-percent share of the

business, across the board."

"Is this Chance serious?"

"Apparently. The tobacco companies think their days

are numbered in the United States. They want

to move off-

shore, escape the regulation that will eventually put

them out of business."

Hector sat silently, taking it all in as the

uniformed players on the field played a game with

rules. What a contrast with politics!

Mercedes was a treasure, a person with access to the

highest levels of the Cuban government. She brought

Hector Sedano information that even Castro

probably didn't have. The big question, of course, was

how she learned it. Hector told himself repeatedly

that he didn't want to know, but of course he did.

He glanced at the woman sitting beside him. She was

wearing a simple dress that did nothing to call

attention to her figure, nor did it do anything

to hide it.

She was a beautiful woman who needed no

makeup and never wore any. Every man she met was

attracted to her, an unremarkable fact, like the

summer heat, which she didn't seem to notice.

Extraordinarily smart, with a nearphotographic

memory, she had almost no opportunities to use

her talent in Cuban society.

Except as a spy.

"Will Maximo be at

Mima's

party tomorrow?"

"He said he would."

"Should I be shocked if he acts possessive?"

Mercedes glanced at him, raised an eyebrow.

"He would not be so foolish."

Well, just who was she sleeping with? Hector glanced

at her repeatedly, wondering. She appeared to be

concentrating on the ball game.

The only thing he knew for sure was that she wasn't

sleeping with him, and God knows he had thought about

that

far more than any priest ever should. Of course,

priests were human and had to fight their urges, but

still...

Castro ... Of course she slept with himshe was his

mistressthat was how she got access. But

did she love liim?

Or was she a cool, calculating tramp ready

to change horses now that Castro was dying?

No. He shook his head, refusing to believe that of

her.

Where did Maximo fit in? As he sat there

contemplating that angle, he wondered how Maximo

saw her?

Mercedes left after watching Ocho pitch an inning.

He faced three batters and struck them all out.

When the game was over, Hector Sedano stayed in

his seat and watched the crowd file out. He was still

sitting there when someone shouted at him, "Hey, I

turn out the lights now."

The darkness that followed certainly wasn't total.

Small lights were illuminated over the exits, the

lights of Havana lit up the sky, and lightning

continued to flash on the horizon.

Sedano lit another cigar and smoked it slowly.

After a few minutes he saw the shape of a man

making his way along the aisle toward him. The man

sagged down on the bench several feet away.

"Good game tonight."...The man was the stadium keeper,

Alfredo Garcia.

"Yes."

"Your brother, El Ocho, was magnificent. Such

talent, such presence."

"We are very proud of him."

"Why do you call him El Ocho?"

"He was the eighth child. He has the usual half

dozen names, but his brothers and I just call him

Ocho."

"I saw that she was here, with her security guards

circling. ... What did she say?"

"What makes you think she tells me anything?"

"Come, my friend. Someone whispers in your ear."

"And someone is whispering to Alejo Vargas."

"You suspect me?"

"I think you are just stupid enough to take money from the

Americans and money from Alejo Vargas and think

neither of them will find out about the other."

STEPHEN COONTS

"My God, man! Think of what you are

sayingff"...Alfredo moved closer. Sedano could see

his face, which was almost as white as his shirt.

"I am thinking."

"You have my life in your hands. I had to (rust you

with my life when I first approached you. Nothing has

changed."

Sedano puffed on the cigar in silence,

studying Garcia's features. Born in America

of Cuban parents, Garcia had been a priest.

He couldn't leave the women alone, however, and

ultimately got mixed up with some topless dancers

running an "escort"...service in East St.

Louis. After a few months the feds busted him for

violation of the Mann Act, moving women across state

lines for immoral purposes, i.e.,

prostitution. After the church canned him, he jumped

bail and fled to Cuba. Garcia had been in Cuba

several years when he was recruited by the CIA, which

asked him to approach Sedano.

Hector Sedano had no doubt that Garcia had the

ear of the American governmentin the past four years

he had supplied Sedano with almost a million

dollars in cash and enough weapons to supply a small

army. The money and weapons always arrived when and where

Garcia said they would. Still, the question remained, who

else did the man talk to?

Who did his control talk to?

Hector had stockpiled the weapons, hidden them

praying they would never be needed. He used the money for

travel expenses and bribes. Without money

to bribe the little fish he would have landed in prison

years ago.

Hector Sedano shook his head to clear his thoughts.

He was living on the naked edge, had been there for

years. And life wasn't getting any easier.

"Castro is dyingea"...he said. "It is a matter of

weeks, or so the doctors say."

Alfredo Garcia took a deep breath and exhaled

audibly.

"I tell you now man-to-man, Alfredo. The

records of Alejo Vargas will soon be placed in

my hands. If you have

betrayed me or the people of Cuba, you had better find

a way to get off this planet, because there is no

place on it you can hide, hot from me, not from the

CIA, not from the men and women you betrayed."

"I have betrayed no one,".alfredo Garcia said.

"God? Yes. But no rnan."

He went away then, leaving Sedano to smoke in

solitude.

Fidel Castro dying! Hector Sedano could hear

his heart beat as he tried to comprehend the reality of

that fact.

Millions of people were waiting for his death, some

patiently, most impatiently, many with a feeling of

impending . doom. Castro had ruled Cuba as an

absolute dictator since

1959: the revolution that he led did nothing more than

topple the old dictator and put a new one in his

place. Castro jettisoned fledgling

democracy, embraced communism and used raw

demagoguery to consolidate his total, absolute

power. He prosecuted and executed his enemies and

confiscated the property of anyone who might be against

him. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, many

to America.

Castro's embrace of communism and seizure of the

assets of the foreign corporations that had invested in

Cuba, assets worth several billions of

dollars, were almost preordained, inevitable.

Predictably, most of those corporations were

American. Also predictably, the

United.states government retaliated with a

diplomatic and economic blockade that continued

to this day.

After seizing the assets of the American corporations

who owned most of Cuba, Castro had little choice:

he had to have the assistance of a major power, so he

substituted the Soviet Union for the United

States as Cuba's patron. The only good thing

about the substitution was that the Soviet Union was a

lot farther away than Florida. Theirs was

never a partnership of equals: the Soviets

humiliated Fidel at almost every turn in the road.

When communism collapsed in the Soviet Union

in the early 1990's, Cuba was cut adrift as

an expensive luxury that the newly democratic

STEPHEN COONTS

Russia could ill afford. That twist of fate was a

cruel blow to Cuba, which despite Castro's best

efforts still was a slave to sugarcane.

Through it all, Castro survived. Never as popular

as his supporters believed, he was never as

unpopular as the exiles claimed. The truth of the

matter was that Castro was Cuban to the core and

fiercely independent, and he had kept Cuba that

way. His demagoguery played well to poor

peasants who had nothing but their pride. The

trickle of refugees across the Florida

Straits acted as a safety valve to rid the

regime of its worst enemies, the vociferous

critics with the will and tenacity to cause serious

problems. In the Latin tradition, the Cubans who

remained submitted to Castro, even respected him

for thumbing his nose at the world. A dictator he

might be, but he was "our"...dictator.

A new day was about to dawn in Cuba, a day

without Castro and the baggage of communism, ballistic

missiles, and invasion, a new day without bitter

enmity with the United States. Just what that day would

bring remained to be seen, but it was coming.

The exiles wanted justice, and revenge; the

peons who lived in the'exiles' houses, now many

families to a building, feared being dispossessed.

The foreign corporations that Castro so cavalierly

robbed wanted compensation. Everyone wanted food, and

jobs, and a future. It seemed as if the bills for

all the past mistakes were about to come due and payable

at once.

Hector Sedano would have a voice in that future,

if he survived. He sat smoking, contemplating

the coming storm.

Mercedes was of course correct about the danger

posed by Alejo Vargas. Mix Latin machismo

and a willingness to do violence to gain one's own ends,

add generous dollops of vainglory, egotism, and

paranoia, stir well, and you have the makings of a

truly fine Latin American dictator,

selfrighteous, suspicious, trigger-happy, and

absolutely ruthless. Fidel Alejandro Castro

Ruz came out of that mold: Alejo Vargas,

Hector knew, was merely another. He

could

not make this observation to Mercedes, whom Hector

suspected of loving Fidelhe needed her

cooperation.

Alfredo Garcia found a seat near the

ticket-taker's booth from where he could see the

shadowy figure on the top row of the bleachers. He

was so nervous he twitched.

Like Hector Sedano, he too was in awe of the

news he had just learned: Fidel Castro was dying.

Alfredo Garcia trembled as he thought about it. That

priest in the top row of the bleachers was one of the

contenders for power in post-Castro Cuba. There were

others of course, Alejo Vargas, the Minister of

Interior and head of the secret police,

prominently among them.

Yes, Garcia talked to the secret police of

Alejo Vargas he had to. No one could refuse

the Department of State Security, least of all a

fugitive from American justice seeking

sanctuary.

And of course he cooperated on an ongoing basis.

Vargas's spies were everywhere, witnessed every conversation,

every meal, every waking moment... or so it seemed. One

could never be certain what the secret police

knew from other sources, what they were just guessing at,

what he was their only source for. Garcia had handled

this reality the only way he could: he answered

direct questions with a bit of the truthif he knew itand

volunteered nothing.

If the secret police knew Alfredo had a

CIA contact they had never let on. They did know

Hector Sedano was a power in the underground although they

seemed to think he was a small fish.

Garcia thought otherwise. He thought Hector

Sedano was the most powerful man in Cuba after

Fidel Castro, even more powerful than Alejo

Vargas.

Why didn't Hector understand the excruciating

predicament that Alfredo Garcia found himself in?

Certainly Hector knew what it was like to have few

options, or none at all.

Alfredo was a weak man. He had never been able

to

STEPHEN COONTS

resist the temptations of the flesh. God had forgiven

him, of that he was sure, but would Hector Sedano?

As he sat in the darkness watching Hector,

Alfredo Garcia smiled grimly. One of the

contenders for power in po/castro Cuba would

be Hector's own brother, Maximo Lufs

Sedano, the finance minister. Maximo was Fidel's

most trusted lieutenant, one of his inner circle.

Three years older than Hector, he had lived

and breathed Castro's revolution all his life,

willingly standing in the great man's shadow. Those days

were about over, and Maximo's friends whispered that he was

readyhe wanted

more.

That was the general street gossip that Garcia heard,

and like most gossip, he thought it probably had a

kernel of truth inside.

For his part, Maximo probably thought his only

serious rival was Alejo Vargas. He was going

to get a bad shock in the near future.

And then there were the exiles. God only knew what

those fools would do when Fidel breathed his last.

Yes, indeed, when Fidel died the fireworks would

begin.

Hector Sedano was taking the last few puffs on

his cigar when his youngest brother, El Ocho, climbed

the bleachers. Ocho settled onto a bench in front

of Hector and leaned back so that he could rest his

feet on the bench in front of him.

"You played well tonight. The home run was a

thing of beauty."

"It's just a game."

"And you play it well."

Ocho snorted. "Just a gameea"...he repeated.

"All of life is a gameea"...his older brother

told him, and ground out his cigar. .

"Was that Mercedes I saw talking to you earlier?"

"She is here for

Mima's

birthday."

Ocho nodded. He seemed to gather himself before he

spoke again.

"My manager, Diego Coca, wants me to go

to the United States."

Hector let that statement lie there. Sometimes Ocho

said outrageous things to get a reaction. Hector

had quit playing that game years ago.

"Diego says I could play in the major

leagues."

"Do you believe him?""

Ocho turned toward his older brother and closest

friend. "Diego is a dreamer. I look good playing

this game because the other players are not so good. The

pitch I hit out tonight was a belt-high fastball right

down the middle. American major league

pitchers don't throw stuff like that because all those guys

can hit it."

"Could you pitch there?"

"In Cuba my fastball is a little faster than

everyone else's. My curve breaks a little more. In

America all the pitchers have a good fastball and

breaking ball. Everyone is better."

Hector laughed. "So you aren't interested in going

to America and getting rich, like your uncle

Tomas"..."...Tomas had defected ten years ago

while a team of baseball stars was on a trip

to Mexico City. He now owned five drycleaning

plants in metropolitan Miami. Oh, yes,

Tomas was getting rich!

"I'm not good enough to play in the big leagues.

Diego tells me I am. I think he believes

it. He wants me to go, take him with me, sign a

big contract. I'm his chance."

"He wants to go with you?"

"That's right."

"On a boat?"

"He says he knows a man who has a boat.

He can take us to Florida, where people will be waiting."

"You believe that?"

"Diego does. That is what is

important."

"You owe Diego a few hours of sweat on the

baseball field, nothing else."

STEPHEN COONTS

Ocho didn't reply. He lay back on his

elbows and wiggled his feet.

"Why don't you tell me all of it"..."...Hector

suggested gently.

Ocho didn't look at him. After a bit he said,

"I got Diego's daughter pregnant. Dora,

the second one."

"He knows this?"

Ocho nodded affirmatively.

"So marry the girl. This is an embarrassment, not

dishonor. My God,

Mima

was pregnant when Papa married her! Welcome

to the world, Ocho. And congratulations."

"Diego is the

girl's father."

"I will talk to himea"...Hector said. "You are both

young, with hot blood in your veins. Surely he will

understand. I will promise him that you will do the right thing by this

girl. You will stand up with her in church, love her,

cherish her...."

"Diego wants the best for her, for the baby, for

me."

"For himself."

"And for himself, yes. He wants us to go on his friend's

boat to America. I will play baseball and earn

much money and we will live the good life in America.

That is his dream."

"I seeea"...sd Hector Sedano, and leaned back

against the fence. "Is it yours?"

"I haven't told anyone elseea"...Ocho said,

meaning the family.

"Are you going to tell

Mimal"

"Not on her birthday. I thought maybe you could tell

her, after we get to America."

"Estd loco,

Ocho. This boat... you could all drown.

Hundredsthousands of people have drowned out there. The sea

swallows them. They leave here and are never heard from

again."

Ocho studied his toes.

"If they catch you, the Americans will send you

back. They don't want boat people."

"Diego Coca says that"

"Damn Diego Coca! The Cuban

Navy will probably catch you before you get out of

sight of

Mima's

house. Pray that they do, that you don't die out there in

the Gulf Stream. And if you are lucky enough

to survive the trip to Florida, the Americans will

arrest you, put you in a camp at Guantanamo

Bay. Even if you get back to Cuba, the

government won't let you play baseball again.

You'll spend your life in the fields chopping

cane. Think about

thatl"

Ocho sat silently, listening to the insects.

"Did you give Diego Coca money"..."...Hector

asked.

"Yes."

"Want to tell me how much?"

"No."

"You're financing his dream, Ocho."

"At least he's got one."

"What's that mean?"

"It means what I said. At least Diego Coca

has a dream. He doesn't want to sit rotting

on this goddamned island while life passes him

by. He doesn't want that for his daughter

or her kid."

"He doesn't want that for himself."

Ocho threw up his hands.

Hector pressed on, relentlessly. "Diego

Coca should get on that boat and follow his dream,

if that is his dream. You and Dora should get married.

Announce the wedding tomorrow at

Mima's

party^the people are your flesh and blood. Cuba is your

country, your heritage. You owe these people and this country

all that you are, all that you will ever be."

"Cuba is

your

dream, Hector."

"And what is yours? I ask you a second time."

Ocho shook his head like a mighty bull. "I do not

wish to spend my life plotting against the government,

making speeches, waiting to be arrested, dreaming of a

Utopia that will never be. That is life wasted."

Hector thought before he answered. "What you say is

true. Yet until things change in Cuba it is

impossible to dream other dreams."

Ocho Sedano got to his feet. He was a tall,

lanky young man with long, ropy muscles.

"Just wanted you to knowea"...he said.

"A man must have a dream that is larger than he is

or life has little meaning."

"Didn't figure you would think it was a good idea."

"I don't."

"Or else you would have gone yourself."

"Ocho, I ask you a personal favor. Wait

two weeks. Don't go for two weeks. See how

the world looks in two weeks before you get on that

boat."

Hector could see the pain etched on Ocho's

face. The younger man looked him straight in the

eye.

"The boat won't wait."

"I ask this as your brother, who has never asked you

for anything. I ask you for

Mima,

who cherishes you, and for Papa, who watches you from

heaven. Have the grace to say yes to my request.

Two weeks."

"The boat won't wait, Hector. Diego

wants this. Dora wants this. I have no choice."

With that Ocho turned and leaped lightly from bench to bench

until he got to the field. He walked across the

dark, deserted diamond and disappeared into the home

team's dugout.

Although he was born in Cuba, El Gate's

parents took him to Miami when he was a toddler,

before the Cuban revo* lution. He had

absolutely no memory of Cuba. In fact,

he thought of himself as an American. English was the

language he knew best, the language he thought

in. He had learned Spanish at home as a

youngster, understood it well, and spoke it with a

flavored accent. Still, hearing nothing but Cuban

Spanish spoken around him for days gave him a bit

of cultural shock.

He and two of his bodyguards had flown to Mexico

City,

V

CUBA

then to

Havana.

He had always kept His contacts with the Cuban

government a deep, dark, jealously guarded

secret, but rumors had reached him, rumors that

Castro was sick, that important changes in

Cuba were in the wind. The rumors had the feel of

truth; his instincts told him.

El Gato, the Cat, didn't get rich

by ignoring his instincts. He decided to go to Cuba and

take the risk of explaining it away later. If the

exiles in Florida ever got the idea that he had

double-crossed them, money or no money, they would

take their revenge.

Courage was one of El Gate's long suits.

He didn't accumulate a fortune worth almost a

half billion dollars by being timid. So he and his

bodyguards boarded the plane. That was almost a week

ago. He had been steadily losing money in the

casinos every day since while waiting. Now the waiting

was over.

Tonight he was to see the man he came to meet,

Alejo Vargas. In five minutes.

He checked his watch, then pocketed his chips and

walked for. the door of the club, the Tropicana, the

jewel of Havana. His bodyguards joined him, like

shadows.

El Gato left the casino via the back entrance.

The three men walked a block to a large black

limousine sitting by the curb and climbed into the rear

seats.

Two men were sitting on the front-facing seats.

"El Gato, welcome to Havana. I confess,

I didn't think we would ever meet on

Cuban comsoil."

"Miracles never cease, Senor Vargas. The

world turns, the sun rises and sets and we all

get older day by day. Wise men change with the times."

"Quite so. This is Colonel Santana, head of the

Department of State Security:"

El Gato nodded politely at Santana, then

introduced his bodyguards, men Santana didn't

even bother to look at.

"I was hoping, Senor Vargas, that you and I might

have a private conversation, perhaps while these gentlemen

watched from a small distance?"

Vargas nodded Ms assent, pushed a button, and

spoke into an intercom to the driver. After about

fifteen minutes of travel, during which nothing was

said, the limo pulled up to a curb and all the men

got out. The car was sitting on a breakwater near

Morro Castle, with the dark battlements looming

above them in the glare of Havana reflecting off the

clouds.

Vargas and El Gato began strolling.

"The cargo is aboardea"...El Gato said, "and the ship

has sailed. I presume you kept me waiting

to see if that event would occur."

"When you proposed this operation, I had my

doubts. I still do."

"I cannot guarantee successea"...El Gato said.

"I do everything within my power to make success

possible, but sometimes the world does not turn my way.

I understand that, and I keep trying anyway."

'The waiting will soon be overea"...Vargas said.

"Indeed. In many ways. I hear rumors that

Fidel will not be with us much longer."

Vargas didn't reply to that remark.

"Change is rapidly coming to Cubaea"...El Gato

began, "and the thought occurred to me that a man with friends in

Cuba under the new order would be in an enviable

position."

"You have such friends?"

"I am here to test the water, so to speak, to learn if

I, do."

"After your years of opposition to Castro, any friends

you have will not be very vocal about it."

"Noisy friends I have aplenty in Florida. No,

the kind of friends I need are the kind who keep their

friendship to themselves and help when help is needed, who

give approvals when asked, who nod yes at the

appropriate time."

"How much money have you given the exiles"

political movements over the years?"

"You wish to know the figure?"

"Yes. I wish to learn if you will be honest with me.

Obviously I have sources and some idea of the amount.

Come now, impress me with your frankness and your

honesty."

"Over five million Americanea"...El Gato

said.

This was twice the figure Vargas expected, and he

looked at the American sharply. If El Gato

was lying, exaggerating the number to impress Vargas,

it didn't show in his face.

"Some of that money, a small amount it is true,

came directly from the Cuban governmentea"...El

Gato said. "I believe you authorized those

payments."

"You have a sense of the sardonic, I seeea"...Vargas

said without humor. One got the impression he had not

smiled in his lifetime, nor would he.

El Gato nodded.

"You had a commodity to sell, we wished to buy. We

paid a fair price."

"Come, come, Senor Vargas. Let's not pretend

with each other. I arranged for you to acquire the

equipmenteaand chemicals necessary to create a

biological warfare program. What you have done with

those chemicals and equipment

1 don't know, nor do I want to know. But you know

as well as I that if the American government found

out about the sale I would be ruined. And you know that I

made no profit in the transaction."

Vargas nodded, a dip of the head.

"Nor have I asked for money for arranging to steal

Nuestra Senora."

"That is true, but if the operation succeeds, we would

have paid a fair amount."

"I do not want your money."

"You want something. What?"

El Gato walked a few paces with his hands in his

pockets before he spoke. "After Castro I

envision a Cuba much more friendly to American

interests, more open to a free flow of capital in and

out. A great many people in the

United States have a great deal of money

accumulated that they want to invest in Cuba, which they

will do as soon as the United States government

allows them to do so, and as soon as the Cuban

government guarantees these investors that their investment

will not be confiscated or stolen with hidden taxes or

demands for graft. A man who could

guarantee that his friends would be fairly treated in

Cuba could make a lot of money. He would be a

patron, if you will. And if he carefully screened

his friends, Cuba would get a vetted flow of capable

investors who would perform as promised."

"Something for everyoneea"...Vargas said.

"Precisely."

"Just so that I understandare you suggesting that you want to be

that man,

el jefecitol"

"I could do it, I believe."

"The exiles expect to come to Cuba at Castro's

death and take over the country. They want

billions in repatriations! I tell you now, you have

helped fuel their expectations with your five

million dollars."

What he failed to mention was the fact that the Cuban

government had played to the fears of the peons who

stayed, telling them they would be thrown from their

homes"...if the exiles ever returned.

El Gato smiled. "Like the exiles, you fail

to clearly see the situation. They are Americans.

They make more money in America than they ever could in

Cuba. They will never return in significant

numbers. In fact, if the borders are

thrown open, the net human flow will be toward the

United States, not back to Cuba. If the

American government would allow it, a million

Cubans a year would leave this island. You would be

wise to let people go where they wish to go."

"You are saying the exile problem will just disappear?"

"Except for a few bitter old men, yes, I

believe it will. The young ones have gotten on with their

lives. They have no old scores to settle."

"So you betray these old ones for your own profit?"

"Senor Vargas, if they wish to nurse old

grudges and dream of a time which is long past and will

never come again, who am I to tell them no? Most of

these people are quite harmless. Those who aren't can be dealt with

when they cause problems. A public apology

to dispossessed old people, a plea for healing, a few

pesos, and the exiles could be appeased."

"Assassination plots against Castro and the like?"

"Plots that never get off the ground are harmless.

Let them have their meetings and their thunderous

denunciations. These people will pass from the scene soon

enough."

Vargas made a gesture of irritation. He had his

own opinions and didn't really wish to hear

other people's. "Colonel Santana will take you and

your men to your hotel."

"Thank you."

"I can promise you very little, El Gato. I understand

that you cannot guarantee the future, but the North

Koreans must fulfill their part of our bargain. If

they do, there is a chance, just a chance, that I may

rule after Castro."

El Gato waited.

Vargas continued: "I will not forget what you did for

me, for Cuba. If the day ever comes when I am in

a position to help you, feel free to ask. What

I can do then will have to be decided upon that day."

"That is more than I hoped forea"...El Gato said,

genuine warmth obvious in his voice. "I thank you

for that promise."

The F-14 Tomcat hung suspended in an

infinite blue sky, over an infinite blue sea.

Or so it seemed to Jake Grafton, who sat in

the front cockpit taking it all in. Behind him

Toad Tarkington was working the radar, searching the sky

ahead. The air was dead calm today, so without a

visual reference there was no sensation of motion. The

puffy clouds on the surface of the sea seemed to be

marching uniformly toward the rear of the

aircraft, almost as if the sky were spinning under the

airplane.

The fighter was cruising at 31,000 feet, heading

northwestward parallel with the southern coast of

Cuba, about a hundred and fifty miles offshore.

"I sure am glad you got us off the ship,

sirea"...Tarkington said cheerfully. "A little flying

helps clean out the pipes, keeps everything in

perspective."

"That it doesea"...Jake agreed, and stretched.

He had the best job in the navy, he thought. As a

battle group commander he could still flyindeed, an

occasional flight was part of the job description.

Yet his flying days would soon be over: in just two

months he was scheduled to turn over the command to another

admiral and be on his way somewhere.

He searched the empty sky automatically as he

thought again about where the next set of orders might send

him. If the people in the flag detailing office in the

Pentagon had a clue, they certainly weren't

talking.

Ah, it would all work out. The powers that be would send

him another set of orders or retire him, and it

really

39

didn't matter much which way it went. Everyone has

to move on sooner or later, so why not now?

Maybe he should just submit his retirement papers,

get on with the rest of his life.

With his right hand he hit the emergency disconnect for the

autopilot, which worked as it should.

Without touching the throttles, Jake Grafton

smoothly lifted the nose and began feeding in left

stick. Nose climbing, wing dropping ... rolling

smoothly through the in-- verted position, though with

only seventy degrees of heading change. The

nose continued downkeep the roll inffandthe G

increased as the fighter came out of the dive and back

to the original heading, only 1,400 below the entry

altitude. Ta-ta! There you have ita sloppy

barrel roll!

Jake kept the stick back and started a barrel

roll to the right.

"Are you okay up there, sir"..."...Toad Tarkington

asked anxiously.

"You ask that of me? The world's fine'st acrobatic

pilot? Have you no respect?"

"These whifferdills are not quite up to your usual

worldclass standards, so one wonders. Could it be

illness, decrepitude, senility?"

They were passing the inverted positon when Jake said,

"Just for that, Tarkington, you can put us on the flight

schedule every day so we can practice. An hour and a

half of high-G maneuvers seven times a week

will teach you to respect your elders."

"You got that rightea"...Toad replied, and moaned as if

he were in pain as Jake lifted the Tomcat into a

loop.

"War Ace One Oh Four, this is Sea Hawk.

You have traffic to the northwest, one hundred miles,

heading south at about 30,000."

"Roger, Sea Hawk.",

Coming down the back side of the loop, Jake turned

to the northwest.

STEPHEN COONTS

"Admiral, I know you think I was loafing back

hereea"...Toad said obsequiously, "but I had 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 himea"...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 conntermeasures (Ecm)

panel lit up as the F-14's sensors picked

up the emissions of the other plane's radar.

"A MiGo-29ea"...Jake said.

"What's he doing out here"..."...Toad wondered.

"Same thing as we are. Out flying around seeing what

is what."

"I thought th@lCubans had retired their

MiGo-29's. Couldn't keep paying the bills on

"em.". "Well, at least one is still operational."

.

Even as they watched, the MiGo 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 MiGo behind him. The Soviets

specifically designed the MiGo-29 to be able

to defeat the F-14, F-15, F-16 and

FirstA-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 MiGo 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 MiGo-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 MiGo 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

MiGo 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 machineea"...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 thingea"...Jake

asked Toad, "do you think Cuban

Air-Sea Rescue is going to come pick him

up?"

"I doubt itea"...Toad replied. "And I suspect

he knows that."

"He's got a set of cojones on himea"...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 MiGo-19's and 21's that equipped the bulk

of Cuba's tactical squadrons, and he damn

well knew it. Cuba owned three dozen

MiGo-29's and had precisely one operationalthis

onewhich Corrado kept flying by the simple

expedient of cannibalizing parts from the others.

He checked his fuel. He had enough, just enough,

to get home. Sure, he had no business being out

here over the ocean, but he wanted to fly today and the

Cuban ground control intercept (Gci)

controller said the American was here. One thing

led to another and here he was.

Now Carlos Corrado was on course to return

to his base near the city of Cienfuegos, on

Cuba's southern coast. He checked the compass, the

engine instruments, then turned back to studying the

American plane, which hung there on the end of his wing

as if it were painted on the sky.

A minute went by, then the man in the front seat

of the American plane raised his hand and waved.

Carlos returned the gesture as the big American

fighter turned away to the right and immediately began

falling behind. Carlos twisted his body in his seat

to keep the F-14 in sight for as long as possible.

Big as it was, the F-14 disappeared into the

eastern sky with startling rapidity.

Carlos Corrado turned in his seat and eased the

position of his butt.

The Americans were two or three technical

generations beyond the Cubans, so far ahead that most

Cuban military men regarded American

capabilities as almost superhuman. They had read

of the Gulf War, of the satellites and com-

puters and smart weapons. Unlike his

colleagues, Corrado was not frightened by the

Americans. Impressed by their military

capability, but not frightened.

If I were smarter,

he thought now, still

would be frightened.

But the Americans and Cubans would never fight.

They had not fought since the Bay of Pigs and

doubtless never would. Castro would soon be gone and a

new government would take over and Cuba would become

a new American suburb, another little beach island

baking in the sun south of Miami, Key Cuba.

When that happy day came, Carlos Corrado

told himself, he was going to America and get a

decent flying job that paid real money.

Dona Maria Vieuda de Sedano's daughters

arrived first, in the early afternoon, tocom tidy up and do

the cooking for the guests. They had married local men

who worked the sugarcane and saw her every day. In

truth, they looked after her, helped her dress,

prepared her meals, cleaned and washed the clothes.

It was infuriating to be disabled, to be unable to

do backslash

The arthritis that crippled her hands and feet made

even simple tasks difficult and complex tasks

out of the question.

Dona Maria managed to shuffle to her favorite

chair on the tiny porch without help. Her small

house sat on the western edge of the village. From the

porch she could see several of her neighbors"

houses and a wide sweep of the road. Across the road

was a huge field of cane. A canecooking

factory stood about a half mile farther west.

When the harvest began, the stacks belched smoke and the

fumes of cooking sugar drifted for miles on the

wind.-

Beyond all this, almost lost in the'distance, was the blue

of the ocean, a thin line just below the horizon, bluer

than the distant sky. The wind coming in off the sea

kept the temperature down and prevented insects from

becoming a major nuisance.

The porch was the only thing Dona Maria really

liked about the house, though after fifty-two years in

residence

God knows she had some memories. Small, just

four rooms, with a palm-leaf roof, this house had

been the center of her adult life. Here she moved

as a young bride with her husband, bore her children,

raised them, cried and laughed with them, buried two

of the ten, watched the others grow up and marry and move

away. And here she watched her husband die

of cancer.

He had died... sixteen years ago, sixteen

years in November.

You never think about outliving your spouse when you are

young. Never think about what comes afterward, after happiness,

after love. Then, too soon, the never-thoughtab

future arrives.

She sat on the porch and looked at the clouds

floating above the distant ocean, almost like ships,

sailing someplace. ...

She had lived her whole life upon this island, every day

of it, had never been farther from this house than

Havana, and that on just two occasions: once when she

was a teenage girl, on a marvelous expedition with

her older sister, and once when her son Maximo was

sworn in as the minister of finance.

She had met Fidel Castro on that visit to the

capital, felt the power of his personality, like a

fire that warmed everyone within range. Oh, what a

man he was, tall, virile, comfull of life.

No wonder Maximo orbited Fidel's star. His

brother Jorge, her eldest, had been one of

Castro's most dedicated disciples, espousing

Marxism and Cuban nationalism, refusing to listen

to the slightest criticism of his hero.

Jorge, dead of heart failure at the age of

forty-two, another dreamer.

All the Sedanos were dreamers, she thought,

povertystricken dreamers trapped on this sun-washed

island in a sun-washed sea, isolated from the rest of

humankind,

the

rest of the species....

She thought of Jorge when she saw Mercedes, his

widow, climb from the car. The men in the car glanced

at her seated on the porch, didn't wave, merely

drove on, leaving Mercedes standing in the road.

"Hola, Mima."

Jorge, cheated of life with this woman, whom he

loved more than anything, more than Castro, more than his

parents, more than

anything,

for the Sedanos were also great lovers.

"Hola,

my pretty one. Come sit beside me."

As she stepped on the porch, Dona Maria said,

"Thank you for coming."

"It is nothing. We both loved Jorge...."

"Jorge..."

Mercedes looked at Maria's hands, took them in

her own, as if they weren't twisted and crippled.

She kissed the older woman, then sat on a bench

beside her and looked at the sea.

"It is still there. It never changes."

"Not like we do."

The emotions twisted Mercedes's insides, made

her eyes tear. Here in this place she had had so

much, then with no warning it was gone, as if a mighty

tide had swept away all that she valued, leaving

only sand and rock.

Jorgeoh, what a man he was, a dreamer and

lover and believer in social justice. A true

believer, without a selfish bone in his body ... and of

course he had died young, before he realized how much

reality differed from his dreams.

He lived and died a crusader for justice and

Cuba and all of that... and left her to grow old

alone ... lonely in the night, looking for someone who

cared about something besides himself.

She bit her lip and looked down at Dona

Maria's hands, twisted and misshapen. On

impulse leaned across and kissed the older woman on

the cheek.

"God bless you, dear childea"...Dona Maria

said.

Ocho came walking along the road, trailed by four

of the neighborhood children who were skipping and laughing

and trying to make him smile. When he turned in at

his mother's gate, the children scampered away.

Everyone on the porch turned and looked at him,

called a greeting as he quickly covered the three or

four paces of the path. Ocho was the Greek god,

with the dark hair atop a perfect head1, a

perfect face, a perfect body ... tall, with

broad shoulders and impossibly narrow hips, he

moved like a cat. He dominated a room,

radiating masculinity like a beacon, drawing the

eyes of every woman mere. Even his mother couldn't take

her eyes from him, Mercedes noted, and grinned

wryly. This last childshe bore Ocho when she was

forty-foureven Dona Maria must wonder about the

combination of genes that produced him.

Normally an affable soul, Ocho had little to say this

evening. He grunted monosyllables to everyone,

kissed his mother and Mercedes and his sisters

perfunctorily, then found a corner of the porch in which

to sit.

Women threw themselves at Ocho, and he never seemed

to notice. It was almost as if he didn't

want the women who wanted him. He was

sufficiently different from most of the men Mercedes

knew that she found him intriguing. And perhaps, she

reflected, that was the essence of his charm.

Maximo Lui's Sedano's sedan braked to a

stop in a swirl of dust. He bounded from the car,

strode toward the porch, shouting names, a wide grin

on his face. He gently gathered his mother in his arms,

kissed her on both her cheeks and forehead, kissed

each hand, knelt to look into her face.

Mercedes didn't hear what he said; he spoke

only for his mother's ears. When she looked away from

Maximo and his mother she was surprised to see

Maximo's wife climbing the steps to the porch.

Maximo's wifejust what

was

her name"...ccdemned forever to be invisible in the glare of the

great man's spotlight.

Another dominant personalitythe Sedanos

certainly produced their share of thoseMaximo was a

prisoner of his birth. Cuba was far too small for

him. Amazingly, be-

cause life rarely works out just right, he had found

one of the few occupations in Castro's Cuba

that allowed him to travel, to play on a wider

field. As finance minister he routinely visited the

major capitals of Europe, Central and South

America.

Just now he gave his mother a gift, which he opened for

her as his sisters leaned forward expectantly, trying

to see.

French chocolates! He opened the box and let his

mother select one, then passed the rare delicacy

around to all.

The sisters stared at the box, rubbed their fingers across

the metallic paper, sniffed the- delicious scent,

then finally, reluctantly, selected one candy and

passed the box on.

One of the sisters' husbands whispered to the other, just

loud enough for Mercedes to overhear: "Would you look at

that? We ate potatoes and plantains last month,

all month, and were lucky to get them."

The other brother-in-law whispered back, "For

three days last week we had absolutely nothing.

My brother brought us a fish."

"Well, the dons in government are doing all right.

That's the main thing."

Mercedes sat listening to the babble of voices, idly

comparing Maximo's clean, white hands to those

of the sisters' husbands, rough, callused,

work-hardened. If the men were different, the women

weren't. Maximo's wife wore a chic,

fashionable French dress as she sat now with Dona

Maria's daughters, whispering with them, but inside the

clothes she was still one of them in a way that Maximo

would never be again. He had traveled too far, grown

too big....

Mercedes was thinking these thoughts when Hector arrived,

walking along the road. Even Maximo stopped

talking to one of his brothers, the doctor, when he

saw Hector coming up the path to the porch.

"Happy birthday,

Mima."

Hector, Jesuit priest, politician,

revolutionary... he spoke softly to his mother,

kissed her cheek, shook Maximo's hand, looked

him in the eye as he ate a chocolate,

kissed each of his sisters and touched the arms and hands of

their husbands and his brothers, the doctor and the

automobile mechanic.

Ocho was watching Hector, waiting for him to reach for

his hand, his lips quivering.

Mercedes couldn't quite believe what she was seeing,

Hector hugging Ocho, holding him and

rocking back and forth, the young man near tears.v

Then the moment passed.

Hector refused to release his grip on his

brother, led him to Dona Maria, gently made him

sit at her feet and placed her hands in his.

Ah, yes. Hector Sedano. If anyone could,

it would be you.

"They do not appreciate youea"...Maximo's wife

told him as they rode back to Havana in his car.

"They are so ignorantea"...she added, slightly

embarrassed that she and her husband should'have to spend

an evening with peasants in such squalid surroundings.

Of course, they were his family and one had duties,

but still... He had worked so hard to earn his standing and

position, it was appalling that he should have to make a

pilgrimage back to such squalor.

And his relatives! The old woman, the sisters

... crippled, ignorant, dirty, uncouth ...

it was all a bit much.

And Hector, the priest who was a secret

politician! A man who used the Church for

counterrevolutionary treason.

"Surely he must know that you are aware of his

political activitiesea"...she remarked now to her

husband, who frowned at the shacks and

sugarcane fields they were driving past.

"He knowsea"...Maximo murmured.

"Europe was so niceea"...his wife said softly.

"I don't mean to be uncharitable, but truly it is

a shame that we must return to

thisl"

Maximo wasn't paying much attention.

"I keep hoping that someday we shall go to Europe and

never returnea"...she whispered. "I do love

Madrid so."

Maximo didn't hear that comment. He was wondering

about Hector and Alejo Vargas. He couldn't

imagine the two of them talking, but what if they had

been? What if those two combined to plot against him?

What could he do to guard against that possibility,

to protect himself?

Later that evening Hector and his sister-in-law,

Mercedes, rode a bus into Havana. "It was good

of you to stay for

Mima's

partyea"...Hector said.

"I wanted to see her. She makes me think of

Jorge."

"Do you still miss him?"

"I will miss him every day of my life."

"Me tooea"...Hector murmured.

"Vargas knows about youea"...she said, after glancing around

to make sure no one else could hear her words.

"What does he know?"

"That you organize and attend political meetings,

that you write to friends, that you speak to students, that most

of the priests in Cuba are loyal to you, that many people

all over this island look to you for leadership.... He

knows that much and probably more."

"It would be a miracle if none of that had reached the

ears of the secret police."

"He may arrest you."

"He will do nothing without Fidel's approval. He

is Fidel's dog."

"And you think Fidel approves of your

activities?"

"I think he tolerates them. The man isn't

immortal. Even he must wonder what will come after

him."

"You are playing with fire. Castro's hold on

Vargas is weakening. Castro's death will give him

a free hand. Do not underestimate him."

"I do not. Believe me. But Cuba is more

important than me, than Vargas, than

Castro. If this country is ever going to be

anything other than the barnyard of a tyrant, someone

must plant seeds that have a chance of growing. Every per-

son I talk to is a seed, an investment in the

future."

""Barnyard of a tyrant." What a pretty

phraseff"...Mercedes said acidly. The last few

years, living with Fidel, she had developed a

thick skin: people said the most vicious things about him and

she had learned to ignore most of it. Still, she

deeply admired Hector, so his words wounded her.

"I'm sorry if I"

She made sure her voice was under control, then

said, "Dear Hector, Cuba is also the

graveyard of a great many martyrs. There is room

here for Vargas to bury us both."

He was remembering the good days, the days when he had

been young, under a bright sun, surrounded by happy,

laughing comrades.

All things had been possible back then. Bullets

couldn't touch them, no one would betray them

to Batista's men, they would save Cuba, save her

people, make them prosperous and healthy and strong and

happy. Oh, yes,

when we were young

...

As he tossed and turned, fighting the pain,

snatches of scenes ran through his mind; student

politics at the University of Havana, the

assault on the Moncada Barracks in

Santiago, guns banging and bullets spanging

off steel, off masonry, singing as they whirled

away.... He remembered the firelights on the

roads, riding the trucks through the countryside,

evenings making plans with Che and the others, how Jhey

would set things right, kick out the capitalists who had

enslaved Cuba for centuries.

Che, he had been a true believer.

And there were plenty more. True believers all.

Ignorant as virgins, penniless and hungry, they

thought they could fix the world.

In his semiconscious state he could hear his own

voice making speeches, explaining, promising

to fix things," to heal the people, put them to work, give

them jobs and houses and medical care and a future for

their children.

Words. All words.

Wind.

He coughed, and the coughing brought him fully awake.

The nurse was there in the chair watching him.

"Leave me, woman."

She left the room.

He pulled himself higher in the bed, used a corner

of the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face.

The sheets were thin, worn out. Even

el presidents"?,

sheets were worn out!

A sick joke, that.

Everything in the whole damned country was broken or

worn out, including Castro's sheets. You didn't

have to be a high government official to be aware of that

hard fact.

On the dresser just out of reach was a box of cigars.

He hitched himself around in bed, reached for one, then

leaned far over and got his hand on the lighter.

The pain made him gasp.

Madre mia!

When the pain subsided somewhat he lay back in the

bed, wiped his face again on the sheet.

He fumbled with the cigar, bit off the end and spat it

on the floor. Got the lighter going, sucked on the

cigar... the raw smoke was like a knife in his

throat. He hacked and hacked.

The doctors made him give up cigars ten years

ago. He demanded this box two days ago,

when they told him he was dying. "If I am dying,

I can smoke. The cancer will kill me before the

cigars, so why not?"

When the coughing subsided, he took a tiny puff

on the cigar, careful not to inhale.

God, the smoke was delicious.

Another puff.

He lay back on the pillow, sniffed the aroma of the

smoke wafting through the air, inhaled the tobacco

essence and let it out slowly as the cigar smoldered in

his hand.

The truth was that he had made a hash of it.

Cuba's

problems had defeated him. Oh, he had done the

best he could, but by any measure, his best hadn't

been good enough. The average Cuban was worse off

today than he had been those last few years under

Batista. Food was in short supply, the

economy was in tatters, the bureaucrats were openly

corrupt, the social welfare system was falling

apart, and the nation reeled under massive short-term

foreign debt, for it had defaulted on its

long-term international debt in the late 1980's.

The short-term debt could not be repudiated, not if

the nation ever expecte'd to borrow another

peso abroad.

He puffed on the cigar, savoring the smoke. Then

he shifted, trying to make the ache in his bowels

ease up.

Of course he knew what had gone wrong. When he

took over the nation he had played the cards he had

... evicted the hated Yanqui

imperialistas

and seized their property, and accepted the cheers and

adulation of the people for delivering them from the oppressor.

Unfortunately Cuba was a tiny, poor country,

so he had had to replace the evicted

patrdn

with another, and the only one in sight had been the

Soviet Union. He embraced communism, got

down on his knees and swore fealty to the Soviet

state. With that act he earned the undying hatred of the

politicians who ruled the United Statesafter

several assassination attempts and the ill-fated

Bay of Pigs invasion debacle, they declared

economic warfare on Cuba. Then the cruelest

twist of the knifethe Soviet Union collapsed in

1990-91 and Cuba was cut adrift.

Ah, he should have been wiser, should have realized that the

United States would be the winning horse.

The Spanish grandees had bled Cuba for

centuries, worked the people as slaves, then as peons.

After the Americans ran the Spanish off,

American corporations put their men in the manor

houses and life continued as before. The people were still slaves

to the cane crop, living in abject poverty, unable

to escape the company towns and the company stores.

A few things did change under the Americans. The

is-

land became America's red light district, the

home of the vice that was illegal on the American

mainland: gambling, prostitution, drugs, and, during

Prohibition, alcohol. Poor Catholic

families sent their daughters to the cities to whore

for the Yanquis.

The capitalists bled Cuba until there was no

blood left they would keep exploiting people the world

over until there were no more people. Or no more

capitalists. Until then, the capitalists would have

all the money. He should have realized that fundamental

truth.

He had grown up hating the United States,

hating Yanquis who drank and gambled and whored the

nights away in Havana. He hated their

diplomats, then- base at Guantanamo Bay,

their smugness, their money ... he despised them and

all their works, which was unfortunate, because America was

a fact of life, like shit, A man could not escape

it because it smelled bad.

God had never given him the opportunity to destroy

the Yanquis, because if He had ...

Fidel Castro was intensely, totally Cuban.

He personified the resentment the Cuban people felt

because they had spent their lives begging for the scraps that

fell from the rich men's table. Resentment was a vile

emotion, like hatred and envy.

Wellea"he was dying. Weeks, they said. A few

weeks, more or less. The cancer was eating him

alive.

The painkillers were doing their jobat least he could

sit up, think rationally, smoke the forbidden cigars,

plan for Cuba's future.

Cuba had a future, even if he didn't.

Of course, the United States would play a

prominent role in that future. With the great devil

Fidel dead, all things were possible. The

economic embargo would probably perish with him, a

new

presidente

could bring ... what?

He thought about that question as he puffed gingerly on the

cigar, letting the smoke trickle out between his lips.

For years Americans had paraded through the govern-

ment offices in Havana talking about what might be

after the economic embargo was lifted by their

government. Always they had an angle, wanted a

special dispensation from the Cuban government... and were

willing to pay for it, of course. Pay handsomely.

Now. Paper promises ... He had enjoyed

taking their money.

He had made no plans for a successor, had

anointed no one. Some people thought his brother, Raul,

might take over after him, but Raul was

impotente,

a lightweight.

He would have to have his say now, while he was very much

alive.

But what should the future of Cuba be?

The pain in his bowels doubled him up. He curled

up in the bed, groaning, holding tightly to the cigar.

After a minute or so the pain eased somewhat and he

puffed at the cigar, which was still smoldering.

Whoever came after him was going to have to make his peace

with the United States. They were going to have to be

selective about America's gifts, rejecting the

bad while learning to profit from the good things, the

gifts America had to give to the world.

That had been his worst failinghe himself had never

learned how to safely handle the American

elephant, make the beast do his bidding. His

successors would have to for the sake of the Cuban people.

Cuba would never be anything if it remained a long,

narrow sugarcane field and way point for cocaine

smugglers. If that was all there was, everyone on the

island might as well set sail for Miami.

Maybe he should have left, said good-bye, thrown up

his hands and retired to the Costa del Sol.

Next time. Next time he would retire young, let

the Cubans make it on their own.

Like every man who ever walked the earth, Castro had

been trapped by his own mistakes. The choices

he made early in the game were irreversible. He

and the Cuban people had been forced to live with the

consequences. Life is like that, he reflected.

Everyone must make his choices,

wise or foolish, good or bad, and live with them;

there is no going back.

There is always the possibility of

redemption, of course, but one cannot unmake the past.

We have only the present. Only this moment.

When the pain came this time, the cigar dropped from his

fingers.

He lay in the bed groaning, trying not to scream for the

nurse. If he did, she would give him an

injection, which would put him to sleep. The needle was

going to give him peace during his final days, but he

wasn't ready for it yet.

The pain had eased somewhat when he felt a hand on

his forehead. He opened his eyes. Mercedes.

"You dropped your cigar on the floorea"...she

whispered.

"I know."

"Shall I call the nurse?"

"Not for a while."

She used a damp cloth to wipe the perspiration from his

face. The cloth felt good.

"Light the cigar."

She did so, put it in his hand. He managed one

tiny puff.

"You talked to Hector?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He was surprised. He didn't know it

would

be

so soon."

"That was your impression?"

"Yes."

"And the tobacco deal with the Americans? What did

Hector say when you told him about it?"

"Just listened."

"The birthday party, Maximo came?"

"Yes. Brought a box of French chocolates and his

wife, who wore a Paris frock."

Fidel's lips twisted. He could imagine what the

other people at the party thought of that. Maximo could charm

foreign bankers and squeeze a peso until it

squealed, but he was no politician.

"Did you warn Hector about Alejo?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He made light of it."

Fidel thought about that. Remembered the cigar and took

another puff.

"He thinks the threat will be the generalsea"...he said

finally, "but it won't. The generals don't know it,

but the troops will follow Hector. Alejo

Vargas is his most dangerous opponent,

and if Hector Sedano doesn't understand that, they will

bury him a few days after they bury me."

"Admiral, next weekend when we're in the

Virgin Islands, what say we put the barge in the

water and go waterskiing?"

The person asking the question was the admiral's aide, a

young lieutenant who flew an FirstA-18 on her

last cruise. Her boyfriend was still in one of the

Hornet squadrons; the last time Jake

Grafton approved the barge adventure, the

boyfriend was invited to go along.

Now Jake sighed. "I'm not sure where we're

going to be next weekend, Beth."...He had no

intention of getting very far from Guantanamo Bay

while those warheads were still in that warehouse, but of

course he couldn't say that. "Check with ops,

Commander Tarkington."

"Yes, sirea"...Beth said, trying to hide her

disappointment.

The new Chief of Staff, Captain Gil

Pascal, Toad Tarkington, and the admiral had

put their heads together, carefully listed the forces

available should an emergency arise, and drafted a

contingency plan. "Nothing's happened in all these

yearsea"...Jake told them, "but Washington

must have had a reason for telling us to keep an eye

on the place. They must know something we don't."

Gil Pascal met the admiral's gaze. He

had reported to the staff just a week ago. "Sir,

as I recall, the orders said to 'monitor" the

loading of the weapons onto the container ship."

""Monitor""..."...muttered Jake Grafton.

"What the hell does that mean? Is that some kind of

New Age bureaucrat word? It doesn't mean

anything."

"I guess my question really is, how much force are you

willing to use without authorization from Washington?"

A faint smile crossed the lips of Toad

Tarkington. Only a man who didn't know the

admiral would ask that question. Anyone who started

shooting in Jake Grafton's bailiwick had

better be ready for a war, Toad, thought. He had

managed to wipe off the smile by the time the admiral

answered:

"Whatever it takes to keep those warheads in

American hands."

Pascal took his time ordering his thoughts. "Shouldn't

we be talking contingencies with Washington,

Admiral?"

Jake Grafton opened a top-secret message

folder that lay on his desk in front of him. "I

already sent a query to CNO. This is the answer."

He passed the message to Pascal. "Monitor

weapons onload diligently, using your best

judgmentea"...the message read, "but do not deviate from

normal routine. Revealing presence of chemical and

biological weapons in Cuba not in the national

interest. Risks of transfer have been carefully

considered at the highest level. Should risk

assessment change you will be informed."...The final sentence

referred to the original message.

"Five sentences"..."...Toad Tarkington asked when he

had had his chance to read the message. "Only five

sentences?"

Reading naval messages was an art, of course.

One had to consider the identity and personality of the

sender, the receiver, the situation, any correspondence

that had passed before.... The situation in Washington was

the unknown here, Jake concluded. If the CNO had

been at liberty to say more, he would have: Jake

knew the CNO. The lack of guidance or

illumination told Jake that the chief of naval

operations wanted him to be ready for anything.

"We'll have to do the best we can with what we

have,"

the admiral said now to Pascal and Tarkington. "I

want a plan: we need someone watching at all

times, a quick reaction force that can meet any initial

incursion with force, a reserve force to throw into the fray

to absolutely deny access, and flash messages

ready to go informing Washington of what we have done."

Toad and Gil Pascal nodded. A plan like this

with the forces that the admiral had at his disposal would be

simple to construct. No surprises there.

"There is always the possibility that we may not be able

to prevent hostiles from getting to the warheads, if they

choose to try. We also need a plan addressing that

contingency."

"Surely this nightmare won't come to passea"...Gil

Pascal said. "Your assessment of the risk differs

remarkedly from that of the National Security

Council."

"I'm sure the powers that be think it quite unlikely

anybody will try to prevent us from removing the

weapons from Cuba, and I agree. On the other

hand, they must know something they can't share with us. If the

risk were zero, they wouldn't have sent us here with orders

to monitor, whatever the hell that is. Gentlemen,

I just want to be ready if indeed we win

the lottery and our number comes up."

Toad thoughtfully put the message from Washington

back into its red folder. He pursed his lips, then

said thoughtfully, "One thing is for suresomething is

up."

Alejo Vargas thought he had the finest office in

Havana, indeed, in all of Cuba, and perhaps he

did. He had the whole corner of the top floor, with

lots of glass. Through the large windows one got a

fine view across the rooftops of Morro Castle

and the channel leading into Havana Harbor from the sea.

The desk was mahogany, the chairs leather, the

carpet Persian.

William Henry Chance paused to take in the

view, then nodded appreciatively. He turned,

saw the old United Fruit Company safe in the

corner, now standing open, and the display of gold and

silver coins from the Spanish Main under glass.

He paused again, ran his eye over the coins just long

enough to compliment his host.

"Very niceea"...Chance said, and took the chair indicated

by Alejo Vargas. At a nearby desk sat

Vargas's Chief of Staff, Colonel Pablo

Santafla, who nodded at Chance when he looked his

way, but said nothing.

Colonel Santana was dark, with coal black

eyes and black hair combed straight back; he had

some slave and Indian somewhere in his bloodline. He

slit the throats and pulled the trigger for Alejo

Vargas whenever those chores needed to be done.

Chance forced himself to ignore Santana and look at

his host. "I appreciate you taking the time from your

busy day to see me, Generalea"...the American said,

and gave Vargas a frank, winning smile.

Chance was tall and angular, with

craggy

good looks, and dressed in a light gray suit of a

quality one could not

obtain in Cuba for love or money. He appeared

perfectly at ease, as if he owned the building and

were calling on a tenant.

No wonder the Russians lost the race to the

Americans,

Vargas thought ruefully. A true Latin male,

he was acutely aware of his own physical and

social shortcomings, his lack of grace and

self-assurance, so he was quick to appreciate the

desired qualities in others.

"I understand you have been discussing a business

arrangement for the future with officials of

several departmentsea"...Vargas began.

"That is correct, General. As you probably

know, I represent a consortium of stockholders

in several of the major American caret tobacco

companies. My errand is discreet, not for public

discussion."

Vargas certainly did know. He had a complete

dossier on William Henry Chance in the upper

right-hand drawer of his desk, a dossier decorated

with a half dozen photos, photocopies of all the

pages of Chance's passport, and one of his entry in

Who's Who.

A senior partner in a major New York law

firm, Chance had represented tobacco companies for

twenty-five years. That Chance was the man in

Havana talking to the Cuban government was a sure

signal that major money was behind him.

Indeed, Chance was in Vargas's office today because

Fidel Castro had asked Vargas to see him.

"Alejoea"...Fidel had said, "our future depends

on Cuba getting a piece of the world economy. The

Americans have kept us isolated too long. If

we can make it profitable for the Americans to lift the

embargo, sooner or later they will. The Yankees

can smell money for miles."

If William Henry Chance knew that Castro had

personally asked Vargas to see him, he gave no

sign.

The less he understands about our government, the better,

Vargas thought. He cleared his throat, and said, "I

am sure you understand our concern, Senor Chance.

Cuba is a poor nation, dependent on sugarcane

as the mainstay of the

economy, a crop that is, as usual, a glut on

the world market. Your client's proposal, as I

understand it, is to cultivate tobacco in Cuba

instead of sugarcane."

Chance gave the tiniest nod. A trace of a grin

showed on his lips. He glanced at Santana, who

was scrutinizing him with professional interest, the way

a cat examines a mouse.

"Your comprehension is perfect, General."

"Through the years, senor, the price of tobacco on

the world market has been even lower than that of

sugar.", "This meeting shall be a great help to my

clientsea"...Chance declared. "Here today I will show you the

many benefits that will accrue in the future to the nation that

keeps an open mind about tobacco. I am not

talking about cigar leaf, you understand, which is a

tiny percentage of the world market. I am talking about

cigarette tobacco."

"The price of which will collapse in America when the

American government ends its subsidy

to American tobacco farmers."

"Indeedea"...sd William Henry Chance. "The

United States government

will

soon cease supporting the price. But of greater

interest to our clients, the government will increasingly

regulate and tax the cigarette business.

Plainly stated, the government is hostile to our

industry. The current administration has stated that

their eventual goal is to put the industry out of

business."

Chance moved his shoulders up and down a millimeter,

settled deeper into his chair. "The American

public is gradually giving up the cigarette

habit. In a few years the only Americans

smoking will be rebellious youth and addicted

geriatrics."

Chance leaned forward slightly in his chair and looked

Alejo Vargas straight in the eye. "The

future of the cigarette industry is to sell

American brands to non-Americans.

All over the world people in developing countries want

the image American cigarettes present:

prosperity, sex appeal, luxury, a rising

status in the world. These images are no

accident. They have been carefully created and

nurtured at great expense by the American

cigarette companies."

Chance paused here to see if his host had anything

to say. He didn't. Alejo Vargas sat

silently with a blank, expressionless face. Not a

single muscle revealed a clue about its owner's

thoughts. Through the years Alejo had had a lot of

experience listening to Castro's long-winded

expositions.

William Henry Chance summed up: "Minister,

under the benevolent eye of a government that wants the

industry to succeed, the prospects for profit are

enormous. In the future the cigarette companies

will grow the tobacco, process it, advertise, and

sell the cigarettes. Cubans could own part of the

companies, which would pay taxes and employ Cubans

at a living wage. Here is a product that could be

produced locally and sold worldwide. Cigarettes

could be gold for Cuba in the twenty-first century."

Now Alejo Vargas smiled. "I like you,

Senor Chance. I like your style."

"You can't fool meea"...Chance shot back. "You like my

message,"

"Cuba needs industries in addition to sugar."

"The key, General, is a stable government that will

protect the industry. Let me be frank: my

clients have a great deal of money to invest, but they will

not do so without the clear, unequivocal prospect

of a stable government that will guarantee their right to do

business and earn a fair profit."

"Any promises or guarantees must come from the

proper ministries of our government, witheathe consent of

our president, Seflor Castroea"...Alejo

Vargas said from the depths of his padded leather chair.

"It is the future of Cuba I wish to discuss with

you, General. I state unequivocally that my

clients will not invest a dime in Cuba until such

time as the American, government lifts the

economic embargo. Candidly, the embargo will not be

lifted as long as Castro remains in office."

"Your candor deserves equal honesty on my

partea"...General Vargas said. "Castro will remain in

office until he chooses to leave of his own free

will or until he dies. Do not be

mistakenregardless of what drivel you hear from the

exiles, Fidel Castro is universally

admired, loved, revered as a great patriot

by virtually everyone in Cuba. There is no

opposition, no movement to remove him... disnone of

that."

"It is the distant future I wish to discuss with

you."

"Very distantea"...the general said. *

"After Castro."

"I do not have a crystal ball, Sefior Chance.

I may not live so long."

"Nor I, sir. But very likely the cigarette

industry will still be in business and looking for new

opportunities to grow."

"Perhapsea"...Alejo Vargas admitted, and cocked his

head slightly. He had seen transcripts of

Chance's telephone calls to the. United States

and a transcript of the conversations that had taken place

in his room. The man hadn't said one word about

Castro's health nor had anyone mentioned it to him.

Still, it was a remarkable coincidence that he was here in

Havana talking about post-Castro Cuba, and

Castro was dying.

Alejo Vargas didn't believe in

coincidences. His instincts told him that William

Henry Chance was not who he appeared to be. As he

listened to Chance talk about cigarette marketing and

demographics in the Third World, he removed the

file on Chance from his desk drawer. Holding the

file in his lap where Chance could not see it, he

carefully reviewed the information it contained. The

photographs he could not scrutinize closely but

he was willing to accept them as genuine. Mr.

William Henry Chance of New York City was

probably a senior partner in a large law

firmafter looking once more at the file Vargas

would have been shocked if he weren't. All the right

things were

in the file. At least the file collectors were

thorough, if nothing else, Vargas thought. Still,

Chance's position and profession might be an

elaborate cover.

When he finished with the file Vargas returned it to the

desk drawer just as Chance was summing up. The lawyer

had charts and graphs. Vargas didn't even glance

at them. He studied Chance's eyes, the way they

focused, how they moved, how the muscles tensed and

relaxed as he talked.

It was possible, Vargas decided.

William Henry Chance might be

CIA.. plus

Thirty minutes later when Chance was packing his

charts and graphs to leave he pulled a small

package from his briefcase and offered it to Vargas.

"Here's something you might enjoy, General. Sort of

an executive pacifier. These things are hot right

now in the States so I picked up 'a few at the

airport."

Vargas unwrapped the tissue paper. He was

looking at a small plastic frame from which three

odd-shaped crystals dangled, suspended by strings.

"These crystals are man-made and react

to differential heatingea"...Chance explained. "You put this

on the windowsill and the crystals dance around,

refracting the sunlight. Very colorful."

"Thank youea"...Vargas said mechanically, and sat the

toy on his desk.

When Chance was gone Colonel Santana called

an aide, who examined the device visually, then

took it away to be examined electronically.

An hour later the aide returned with the toy in hand.

"It is what it appears to be, sir, merely three

lumps of oddly shaped crystal on strings. The

crystals and frame are entirely solid;

they contain nothing."

"Americans! Executive pacifierff"...Vargas

said contemptuously.

Colonel Santana put the toy on a

south-facing windowsill, watched the crystals dance in

the sun for a moment, then forgot about it.

William Henry Chance took his time walking to his

hotel, the Nacional, a classic 1930's

masterpiece near Havana harbor. He left his

locked briefcase in his room, then went

downstairs to the hotel restaurant, which charged

truly stupendous amounts of American dollars for

very modest food. In fact, the only currency the

hotel staff would accept was American dollars.

Colorful wooden panels and ceramic accents, and

peacocks wandering around like refugees from an aviary,

gave the place an over-the-top Caribbean look,

Chance thought, sort of South Miami Beach racheted

one notch too tight.

Chance ordered a sea bass, blackened and grilled,

black beans and rice, avocados, and a

mojito,

a delicious concoction of lime juice, sugar,

mint leaves, and rumjust what the doctor

ordered to prevent scurvy. He savored the fish,

sipped a second

mojito,

contemplated the state of the universe and his fellow

diners.

The hotel staff, he knew, were employees of the

Cuban secret police. When they weren't rushing

here and there with daiquiris and fruit drinks they worked

for Yargas, spied on the guests, listened to their

conversations,, searched their luggage, filled out

written reports.

Chance knew the routine. He also knew that the

Cubans would learn nothing by watching him because there was

nothing to learn.

As he drank his second

mojito

he carefully reviewed everything Vargas had said

during his interview. He thought about the general's

face, the total lack of expression when the

demise of Fidel Castro was discussed.

Of course Alejo Vargas knew that Castro was

dying. He must know. What Vargas didn't know was

that the CIA was equally aware of Castro's medical

condition.

When Chance finished dinner he went out on the

street for a walk. First he had to work his way through the

crowd of Cubans loafing around the entrance to the

hotel. Knots of poor, bored Cubans with

nothing to do and nowhere to

go thronged the sidewalks in front of every nightclub

and casino listening to the music that floated out through open

doors and windows. Occasionally people danced or sang,

but mostly they just passed the time chatting and watching the

tourists, and beggars and prostitutes trying

to extract dollars from them.

Several blocks away Chance stopped to buy bread.

The man who sold him the bread gave him a peso

in change.

One peso meant yes, two meant no.

Chance smiled, nodded his thanks, and walked on.

The crystal device was working. The vibrations of

human voices in the room changed the motion of the

crystals in predictable, minute amounts. When a

powerful optical device was focused on the

crystals, the refracted light was processed through a

computer into human speech. The crystals were a

totally passive listening device.

So far so good, Chance reflected, and walked on

aimlessly, for the exercise, drinking in the sights,

sounds, and smells of Havana. She was like

a painted old whore, he thought, trying to keep up

appearances. The tourist attractions were gay and

lively, temples of hedonism set in a gray

communist wasteland.

Outside the tourist area the city reeked of

destitution and decay. The crumbling, rotting

buildings were choked to the rafters with people, often four

families to every apartment. The people fought daily

battles to get enough food and basics to sustain

life. Away from the clubs and hotels, the faces

of the people were gloomy, drawn, without hope.

The poison of communism had done its work here, as it

had in every nation that had ever embraced it. After the

revolution the government expropriated almost all

private property, from the vast estates of the rich

to the corner grocery. Hopeless, grinding poverty

became nearly universal. Forty years after the

revolution the average wage was ten dollars a

month, girls from all over Cuba flocked

to Havana to prostitute themselves on the streets,

everything necessary for a decent life was outrageously

expensive or

unavailable at any price. The social justice

that the communists had promised was as far

away as ever: the pain and misery that blighted and made

wretched millions of lives had not brought that goal

one step closer.

The tourist attractions were the supreme irony, of

course. These monuments to greed and sins of the flesh were

owned and operated by the socialist state to attract

hard currency. The dollars were brought in and spent

here by decadent capitalists who earned the money

exploiting the workers of the world somewhere else.

If Karl Marx only knew. With the banners of

social justice flying in the blue tropic sky,

the Cubans had joined the Pied Piper of the Sierra

Maestra as he marched bravely down the road

to hell. The crumbling buildings, decrepit old

cars, hookers on every discorner, universal

hopelessness it looked as if the whole parade had

almost arrived. caret

Very curious, William Henry Chance thought.

Curious as hell.

From this vantage point he could see all of it, his

whole life, as if it were a play being performed before

him. The memories came back vivid and clear,

the scenes scrolling before his eyes. The mistakes and

lost opportunities and petty vendettas played

endlessly, inevitably, and he lived it

all again, powerless to change a word or gesture.

He was in pain these days, a lot of it, and the doctor

this morning had given him a strong narcotic. Now

he floated, half-asleep, the pain that had doubled

him into the fetal position now a tolerable dull

ache. Even as his mind raced, his body relaxed.

Mercedes Sedano sat in a chair in the darkened

room beside the bed, looking into the gloomy darkness and

lost in her own thoughts.

She reached for Fidel when he moaned and put her

hand on his forehead. He had always liked the sensual

coolness of her fingers. Her touch now seemed

to quiet him. He relaxed again, then tossed

restlessly as the ghosts of the

past paraded through the recesses of his mind.

An hour later, his eyes opened, though they didn't

focus. Finally the head moved and the eyes sought her

out.

Fidel Castro said nothing, merely looked.

He could feel the narcotic wearing off. The pain was

coming back. He opened his mouth to ask for the doctor,

then thought better of it.

He licked his lips. "I want to make a

videotapeea"...he whispered, barely audible.

"Are you strong enough?"

"For a little while, I could be, I think. It must be

done."

"What will you say?"

"I don't know exactly. I need to think about it."

"When do you wish to do this tape?"

"Soon, I think, or never."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow. Tell the doctor. I must be alert

tomorrow, if only for a little while."

"Why?"

"I want-to dictate my political will."

She leaned forward and put her face next to his.

"Can you visit a moment with me?"

"Te quiero, mujer."

"y yo te adoro, me viejo."

"We will talk for a little bit, then the doctor and the

needle."...He was perspiring now, his body becoming

tense.

"I am being selfish. I will call the doctor

now."

"In a moment. I want to tell you... I love

you. You have been the rock I have held on to the last

few years."

She wiped away her tears and kissed him. -

Then he said, "I have made many mistakes

in my life, but I have always tried to do what I thought

best for Cuba. Always. Without fail."

"Why do you think I love you so?"

"I want the Cuban people to remember me well.

They are my children."

"They will never forget."

"I must help them march into the future."

He drew his knees to his chest. His eyes were

bright, perspiration coursed from his forehead and soaked

into the pillow.

"Tomorrowea"...he whispered. "I will think. Get the

doctor now."

She squeezed his hand, then left the room.

Maximo Sedano spent the evening on his yacht

cruising in sight of Morro Castle. The breeze

blew the tops off occasional waves under a deep

blue sky. Maximo's two guests looked

decidedly pale as they huddled with him around the

small table near the galley.

"If Castro dies, will the drug smugglers continue

to do business with us"..."...asked Admiral Delgado,

head of the Cuban Navy. For the last fifteen years

he had limited his nautical activities

to visiting patrol boats tied to piers.

"If we can guarantee the continued safety

of their products and their people, of courseea"...Maximo

said.

"We can't guarantee anythingea"...General Alba,

Chief of Staff of the Cuban Army, said

bitterly. "The whole thing is going to fall apart;

we are going to lose something very sweet."

It was typical of Delgado and Alba, Maximo

thought, that their very first thought of the future was of their

pocketbooks. Money. These small, petty men

lived for the bribes. Truly, they were unable to see

what lay outside of the tiny circle where they lived

their miserable, corrupt lives.

Alas, the best military man in Cuba under the

age of eighty, the air force chief, died last

month. Castro had yet to name a replacement, and

probably would not.

Maximo sighed. "Nothing lasts foreverea"...he said.

"But

change always presents opportunity, if one knows

where to

look for it. Gentlemen, it all boils down to this:

Who will

rule Cuba when the dust settles after the

funeral?"

" "It won't be youea"...General Alba said

curtly. "Five of

my regional commanders are in Hector Sedano's

pocket, and there is little I can do about it unless I

relieve them and put someone else in their

place."...He gave a tiny shrug. "Castro must

endorse the order. If I make a major move

like that without his consent, he will sack me."

"He is sick."

"His aides will sack me, using his autiiority.

I cannot disobey Fidel while he draws breath.

You know that as well as I."

"Perhaps you should shoot these disloyal subordinatesea"...the

admiral said slowly, eyeing his colleague.

"If you have some loyal men who will wait until the

right momentea"...Maximo added.

"When Castro dies?"

"No. When I give the word. Not until then."

"I have some loyal men, certainlyea"...the general said.

"I have spread the money around, made sure it got

all the way down the chain. Only a fool plays

the pig or hands great wads of money to someone else

to distribute. My men get their share. The devil of

it is that the disloyal ones think Alejo Vargas

puts it in their pockets. They think he is the good

fairy."

"Will they obey you without question?"

"The loyal men will obey

me,

yes."

"And will

you

obey

me?"

Maximo Sedano demanded.

General Alba stared at Maximo impudently.

"I will not lift a finger to put you on the throne as the

new Fidel unless ..."...he said roughly, still looking

Maximo straight in the eye, "unless you represent

my interests, which are also the interests of my men, and you

have a chance to win. I don't think that you have such a

chance."

"I hear you, Alba. We have worked together for years;

there is enough sugar here for all of us."...Maximo glanced

at the admiral. "Do you agree?"

"Oh, there's enough. But money isn't everything. The

fact is that Alejo Vargas is a blackmailer

and has been

gathering his filth for twenty years. His spies are

everywhere; he sees and hears everything."

The admiral picked up the thought.

"Vargas has corrupted people you would not suspect, and

those he can't corrupt, he blackmails. I

give you my honest opinion: You have no chance against this

man."

"Without friends, I do not, that is true."

"I tell you now, Maximo, you have no friends who

wish to die with you. Few men do."

"What I cannot understandea"...the soldier said, "is why

Fidel tolerated your brother's antics. He

has- been told repeatedly of Hector's

activities, of the "meetings, the speeches, the

subtle criticism of Fidel and the choices he

made. Why does Fidel tolerate this?"

"I asked him that question onceea"...Maximo said, "a

year or so ago. Believe me, he has been

carefully briefed on Hector Sedano."

"What did he say?"

"He said Hector was a barometer. The people's

reactions to his message told Fidel how

unhappy they were with him, with the government. People

routinely lie to government clerks, but if they go out

of their way to listen to Hector Sedano make a

speech, that means something. For my part, I think

Fidel wisely considers what the Church might

think. Like it or not, Hector is a

priest. Fidel has carefully reached out to the

Vatican the last few yearshe cannot afford

to antagonize the pope."

"Are you saying he doesn't care what Hector

says?"

"Three or four years ago when Hector first

came to his attention, I think Fidel found him

extremely irritating. Believe me, I warned

Hector repeatedly, tried to get him to use

reason, to control his tongue. He ignored me.

Flouted me.

"I think Fidel intended to imprison Hector

when he had said enough to convict himself with his own mouth. I

told Hector he was playing with fire. But as

Fidel got sicker, I think he lost interest.

He just listens to the reports now,

asks a few questions about the size of the crowds, who was

there, and goes on to another subject."

"Surely Fidel doesn't intend that Hector

Sedano rule after him"..."...Admiral Delgado

asked, his disapproval of Castro's attitude quite

plain.

"If we are to have a chance at the prize, we must

strike when Fidel breathes his lastea"...Maximo said.

"And quickly. Alejo Vargas must be

assassinated within hours of Castro's death. Within

minutes."

"We would have to kill Santana tooea"...the general

said. "I have trouble "sleeping nights knowing he is out

there listening to everything, planning, scheming at

Alejo's side."

"Who is going to do this killing"..."...the admiral asked.

"No one spoke.

"Our problem is going to be staying aliveea"...the

general said, "because Alejo Vargas and Santana will

eliminate us at the slightest hint that we might be

a threat."

"What about Hector?"

"Hector will have to dodge his own bullets."

"You are sheepea"...Maximo muttered, loud enough for them

to hear, "without the courage to take your fate in your

own hands. The wolves will rip out your throats."

Toad Tarkington and his wife, Lieutenant

Commander Rita Moravia, were seated in the back

corner of the main wardroom aboard

United States,

drinking after-dinner coffee and conversing in low tones.

A naval test pilot, Rita was on an

exchange tour with the Marine squadron aboard

Kearsarge

so that she could gain operational experience on the

tiltrotor Osprey prior to its introduction

into navy squadrons.

As usual when he was around Rita, Toad

Tarkington had a smile on his face. He felt

good.

Life is good,

he thought as he watched her tell him what their son,

Tyler, now four years old, had said in his most

recent letter. She had received the missive earlier

today. Of course Tyler wrote it with the help of

Rita's parents, who looked after him when Rita and

Toad were both at sea.

Yes,

life is good!

It flows along, and if you surround yourself with interesting

people and interesting problems, it's worth living. Toad

grinned "broadly, vastly content.

"May I join you"..."...Toad and Rita looked up,

and saw the new chief of staff standing there with a cup of

coffee in his hands.

"Please do, Captain. Have you met my wife,

Rita Moravia?"

Gil Pascal hadn't. He and Rita shook

hands, said all the usual

getting-acquainted things.

After they discussed the command that the captain had just

left, Pascal said, "I understand that you two have known

Admiral Grafton for some years."

"Oh, yesea"...Toad agreed. "I was just a

lieutenant in an F-14 outfit when I first

met him. He was the air wing commander, aboard this very

ship in fact. We went to the Med that time, had a

run-in with El Hakim."

"I remember the incidentea"...Pascal said. "The

ship went to the yard for a year and a half when she got

back to the States. And Admiral Grafton was

awarded the Medal of Honor."

Toad just nodded. "Rita met the admiral a few

months later in Washington," Toad said, trying

to move the conversation along. Conversations about El

Hakim made him uncomfortable. That was long ago and

far away, when he was single. Now, he realized with a

jolt, things were much differenthe had Rita and Tyler.

He was thinking about how being a family man changed his

outlook when he heard Rita say, "Toad has

served with Admiral Grafton ever since then.

Somehow he's always found a billet that allowed him

to do that."

"You know Admiral Grafton pretty

well thenea"...Pascal said to Toad.

"He's the second best friend I have in this

lifeea"...Toad replied lightly. He was smiling,

and deadly serious. "Rita is

numero uno,

Jake Grafton is number two."

From there the conversation turned to Rita's current as-

signment, evaluation of the new V-22 Osprey.

After a few minutes Toad asked Rita, "May

I get you more coffee?"

At her nod, Toad excused himself, took both

cups and went toward the coffee urn on a side

table. Normally a steward served the coffee, but just

now they were cleaning up after the evening meal.

Captain Pascal asked, "Have your husband's

assignments hurt his career?"

Rita knew what he meant. Toad had not

followed the classic career path that was supposed

to lead to major command, then flag rank.

"Perhaps."...She gave a minute shrug. "He made

his choice. Jake Grafton appeals to a different

side of Toad's personality than I do."

"Oh, of courseea"...sd the captain, feeling his way.

"Spouses and friends, very different, quite understandable ..."

"Jake Grafton can trade nuances with the

best bureaucrats in the business, and he can attack

a problem in a brutally direct manner."...Rita

searched for words, then added, "He always tries to do the

right thing, regardless of the personal consequences. I

think that is the quality Toad admires the most."

"I seeea"...sd the chief of staff, but it was obvious

that he didn't.

As Toad walked toward the table with a coffee cup in

each hand, Rita Moravia took a last stab at

explanation: "Jake Grafton and Toad

Tarkington are not uniformed technocrats or clerks

or button pushers. They are warriors: I think

they sense that in one another."

The shadows were dissipating to dusky twilight as Ocho

Sedano walked the streets toward the dock area.

Over each shoulder he carried a bag which he had

stitched together from bedsheets. One contained a few

changes of clothes, a baseball glove, several

photos of his familyall that he wished to take with

him into his new life in America. Truly, when

you inventory the stuff that fills your life, you can

do without most of it. Diego Coca said to travel

light and Ocho took him literally.

The other bag contained bottles of water. He had

searched the trash for bottles, had washed

them carefully, filled them with water, and corked them.

Diego hadn't mentioned water or food, but Ocho

remembered his conversation with his brother, Hector, and

thought bringing water would be a wise precaution.

He also had two baked potatoes in the bag.

Diego would laugh at himthey were not going to be at

sea long enough to get really hungry, or so he said.

Please, God, let Diego be right. Let us be

in America when the sun rises tomorrow.

There would be a man waiting in the Keys, waiting on

a certain beach. Diego showed Ocho a map with the

beach clearly marked in ink. "He was a close friend

of my wife's brotherea"...Diego said. "A man who

can be trusted."

The boat was fast enough, Diego said, to be in

American waters at dawn. They would make their

approach to the beach as the sun rose, when

obstructions to navigation were visible, when they could

check landmarks and buoys.

Diego was confident. Dora believed her father,

looked at him with shining eyes when he talked of

America, of how it would be to live in an American

house, go to the huge stadiums and watch Ocho play

baseball while everyone cheered... to have a

television, plenty to eat, nice clothes,

a

carl

Dios mio,

America did sound like a paradise! To hear

Diego tell it America was heaven, lacking only

the angel choir ... and it was just a boat ride

away across the Florida Straits.

Of course, Diego said they would probably get

seasick, would probably vomit. That was inevitable,

to be expected, a price to be paid.

And they could get caught by the Cubans or

Americans, get sent back here. "We'll be no

worse off than we are now if that

happensea"...Diego argued. "We can always try again

to get to America. God knows, we can't get any

poorer."

Dora with the shining eyes ... she looked so

expectant.

She was the first, the very first woman he had ever made

love to. And she got pregnant after that one time!

When she first told him, he had doubted her.

Didn't want to believe. She became angry,

threw a tantrum. Then he had believed.

He thought about her now as he walked the dark

streets, past people sitting in doorways,

couples holding hands, past bars with music coming through

the doorways. He had spent his whole life here and

now he was leaving, an event of the first order of

magnitude. Surely they could see the transformation

in his face, in the way he walked.

Several people called to him, "El Ochoff"...Several

fans wanted to shake his hand, but no more than usual.

This was the way they always acted as he walked bythis

was the way people had treated him since he was fifteen.

He left the people behind and walked past the closed fish

markets and warehouses. His footsteps echoed off the

buildings.

The boat was in a slip, Diego said, behind a

certain boatyard.

He rounded the corner, saw people. Men, women, and children

standing in little knots. Hmm, they were right near the

slip.

They were standing around the slip.

He saw Diego standing on the dock, and Dora.

People stepped out of the way to let him by.

"All these peopleea"...he said to Diego, "Did you

announce our departure at the ballpark? I thought

we were going to sneak out of here."

Diego had a sick look on his face. "They're

going with usea"...he said.

"What?"

"The captain brought his relatives, my brother

heard we were leaving, talked to some of his friends...."

Ocho stared at the boat. The boat's name on the

stern

was written in black paint, which was chipping and peeling

off.

Angel del Mar,

Angel of the Sea. The boat was maybe forty feet

long, with a little pilothouse. Fishing nets still hung

from the aft mast. The crowdhe estimated there were

close to fifty people standing here.

"How many people, Diego? How many?"

"Over eighty."

"On that boat? In the Gulf Stream?

Estd locot

Diego was beside himself. "This is our chance, Ocho.

We can make it. God is with us."

"God? If the boat swamps, will He keep us from

drowning?"

"Ocho, listen to me. My friends are waiting in

Florida. This is our chance to make it to America,

to be something, to live decent.... This is

our

chance."

People were staring at him, listening to Diego.

Ocho looked into the faces locking at him. He

tore his eyes away, finally, looked back at

Diego, who had his hand on Ocho's arm.

"No. I am

not

going."...He pulled his arm from Diego's grasp.

"Go with one less, you will all have a little better

chance."

"You

have

to goea"...Diego pleaded, and grabbed his arm.

"Ochoea"...Dora wailed.

"You have to goea"...Diego snarled. "You got her

pregnant! Be a man!"

CHAPTER FIVE

Eighty-four people were packed aboard

Angel del Mar

as she headed for the mouth of the small bay under a

velvet black sky strewn with stars. A sliver of

moon cast just enough light to see the sand on the bars at

the entrance of the bay.

The boat rode low in the water and seemed to react

sluggishly to the small swells that swept down the

channel.

"This is insaneea"...Ocho said to Diego Coca, who

was leaning against the wall of the small wheelhouse.

"We'll make it. We'll reach the rendezvous in

the Florida Keys an hour or two before dawn.

Vamos con Dios."

"God had better be with usea"...Ocho muttered, and

reached for Dora. The baby didn't show yet. She

was of medium height, with a trim, athletic frame.

How well he knew her body.

As far as he knew, he was the only one on the

boat who had brought water or food. Oh, the other

passengers had things, all right, sacks and boxes of

things too precious to leave behind: clothes,

pictures, silver, Bibles, rosaries,

crucifixes that had decorated the walls of their

homes and their parents" and grandparents' homes.

Boxes and sacks were stacked around each person, who

sat on the deck or on his pile. Men, women,

children, some merely babies in arms... It appeared

to Ocho as if the Saturday night crowd from an

entire section of ballpark bleachers had been

miraculously transported to the deck of this small

boat.

The breeze smelled of the sea, clean, tangy,

crisp. He

took a deep breath, wondered if this were his last

night of life.

He pulled Dora closer to him, felt the warmth and

promise of her body.

Well, this boatload of people would make it

to Florida or they wouldn't, as God willed it.

He had never thought much about religion, merely

accepted it as part of life, but through the years he had

learned about God's will. He was not one of those

athletes who crossed himself every time he went to the

plate or prepared to make a crucial pitch,

vainly asking God for assistance in trivial

matters, but he knew to a certainty that most of the

major events of life be you ballplayer,

manager, father, husband, cane worker, whateverare beyond

your control. Events take their own course and

humans are swept along with them. Call it

God's will or chance or fate or what have you, all

a man could do was throw the ball as well as he could,

with all the guile and skill he could muster. What

happened ajfter the ball left your fingers was beyond your

control. In God's hands, or so they said. If

God cared.

For the first time in his life Ocho wondered if

God cared.

He was still thinking along these lines when the boat

buried its bow in the first big swell at the harbor

entrance. Spray came flying back clear to the

wheelhouse. People shrieked, some laughed, all tried

to find some bit of shelter.

People were moving, holding up clothing or pieces of

cardboard when the next cloud of spray came flying

back.

The boat rose somewhat as she met each swell, but

she was too heavily loaded.

"We're not even out of the harborea"...muttered the man

beside Ocho. His voice sounded infinitely weary.

Dora hugged Ocho, clung to him as she stared into the

night.

She barely came to his armpit. He braced himself

against the wall of the wheelhouse, held her close.

The boat labored into the swells, flinging heavy

sheets of spray back over the people huddled on the

deck.

The door to the wheelhouse opened. A bare head

came out, shouted at Diego Coca: "The boat

is overloaded, man! It is too dangerous to go

on. We must turn back."

Diego pulled a pistol from his pocket and

placed the muzzle against the man's forehead. He

pushed the man back through the door, followed him into the

tiny shack and pulled the door shut behind him.

The man next to Ocho said, "We may make it...

if the sea gets no rougher. I was a fisherman

once, I know of these things."

The man was in his late sixties perhaps, with a deeply

lined face and hair bleached by the sun. Ocho had

studied his face in the twilight, before the light

completely disappeared. Now the fisherman was merely

a shape in the darkness, a remembered face.

"Your father is crazyea"...Ocho told Dora, speaking

in her ear over the noise of the wind and sea. She said

nothing, mexgly held him tighter.

R was then he realized she was as frightened as he.

Angel del Mar

smashed its way northward under a clear, starry

sky. The wind seemed steady from the west at twelve

or fifteen knots. Already drenched by spray, with no

place to shelter themselves, the people on deck huddled where

they were. From his position near the wheelhouse Ocho

could just see the people between the showers of spray, dark

shapes crowding the deck in the faint moonlight, for

there were no other lights so that the boat might go

unnoticed by Cuban naval patrols.

"When we get to the Gulf Streamea"...the fisherman beside

Ocho shouted' in his ear above the noise of the wind and

laboring diesel engine, "... swells ... open

the seams ... founder in this sea."

In addition to heaving and pitching, the boat was also

rolling heavily since there was so much weight on

deck. The roll to starboard seemed most pronounced

when the boat crested a swell, when it was naked to the

wind.

Ocho Sedano buried his face in Dora's hair

and held her

tightly as the boat plunged and reared, turned his

body to shield her somewhat from the clouds of spray that

swept over them.

He could hear people retching; the vomit smell was

swept away on the wind and he caught none of it.

On the boat went into the darkness, bucking and writhing

as it fought the sea.

Late in the evening William Henry Chance met his

associate at the mahogany bar hi El

Floridita, one of the flashiest old nightclubs

in Old Havana. This monstrosity was the dazzling

heart of prerevolutionary Havana hi the bad

old days; black-and-white photos of Ernest

Hemingway, Gary Grant, and Ava

Gardner still adorned the walls. The place was full

of Americans who had traveled here in defiance of

their government's ban on travel to Cuba. As

bands belted out salsa and rhumba, the Americans

drank, ate, and scrutinized voluptuous

prostitutes clad in tight dresses and high

heels.

Chance's associate was Tommy Carmellini, a

Stanford law school graduate in his late

twenties. The baggy sportscoat and pleated

trousers did nothing to show off Carmellini's wide

shoulders and washboard stomach. Still, a thoughtful

observer would conclude he was remarkably fit for a

man who spent twelve hours a day at a desk.

"Looks like the Cubans have come full

circleea"...Chance said when Carmellini joined him at

the bar. He had to speak up to be heard above the

music coming through the open windows.

"Goes around and comes aroundea"...Tommy Carmellini

agreed. "I wonder just how many different social

diseases are circulating in this building tonight."

When they were outside on the sidewalk strolling

along, William Henry Chance pulled a cigar from

the pocket of his sports jacket, which was folded

over his left arm. He bit off the end of the

thing, then cupped his hands against the breeze and lit it

with a paper match. The wind blew out

the first two matches, but he got the cigar going with the

third one. After a couple purr's, he sighed.

"Smells deliciousea"...Carmellini said.

"Cuban cigars are the real deal. Gonna be the

new "in" thing. You should try one."

"Naw. I just might like cigars. I've made it this

far without smoking, I'm going to try to go all the

way."

They paused outside a nightclub and listened to the

music pouring out. "That's a good band."

"If you close your eyes, this sorta feels like

Miami Beach."

"Miami del Sud."

They walked on. "So what do you hear?"

"The pacifiers are working. All three of them. This

afternoon Vargas talked to his subordinates about this and

that, the minister of finance had phone sex with a girlfriend,

and Castro's top aide talked to the doctors for

an hour."

"How is the old goat doing?"

"Not good, the man said. The doctors talked about how

much narcotics to administer to ensure he didn't

suffer."

"Any guesses when?"

"No."

"The Cuban exile, El Gato, where does he

fit in?"

"Don't know yet."

"He's in the casino now with three Russian

gangsters, people he knows apparently, playing for high

stakes."

"El Gato is supposed to be an influential and

powerful enemy of the Castro regimeea"...Chance

muttered. "Sure does make you wonder."

"Yeahea"...sd Carmellini. He and Chance both knew

that the FBI had an agent and three informers in El

Gate's chemical supply business looking for

evidence that it was the source of supply for some of the

makings of Fidel Castro's biological warfare

program. So far, nothing. Then El Gato

unexpectedly comswanned off to Havana. Chance and

Carmellini were coming anyway, but now they had a new

item added to their agenda.

And Castro was dying.

"I'd like to know what the Cat is going to tell all

his exile friends when he gets back

to Floridaea"...Tommy Carmellini said.

"Maybe if he winds up in the right offices

we'll find out, eh?"

That reference to the executive pacifiers made

Chance grin. He puffed the cigar a few times while

holding it carefully between thumb and forefinger.

"You don't really know much about smoking cigars, do

you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes, sir."

Chance put the cigar between his teeth at a jaunty

angle and puffed fearlessly three or four times.

Then he took the thing from his mouth and held it so he

could see it. "Wish I could get the hang of itea"...he

said. "Cuba seemed like a good place to learn about

cigars."

He tossed the stogie into a gutter on the street.

"Makes me a little light-headed."...Chance grinned

sheepishly and wiped a sheen of perspiration from his

brow.

He stood listening to the sounds of the crowd and the

snatches of music floating from the bars and casinos,

thinking about biological weapons.

Angel del Mar

was only a half hour past the mouth of the harbor when

the fisherman beside Ocho Sedano pulled at

his arm to attract his attention. Then he shouted,

"We will reach the Gulf Stream soon. The swells

will be larger. We are too deeply loaded- We

must get rid of what weight we can."

The boat was corkscrewing viciously. Ocho

nodded, passed Dora to the fisherman, pulled open

the wheelhouse door and carefully stepped inside.

The captain worked the wheel with an eye on the

compass. The faint glow from the binnacle and the engine

RPM indicator were the only lightsthey cast a

faint glow on the captain's face and that of Diego

Coca, who was wedged

in beside him, the gun still in his hand. Both men were facing

forward, looking through the window at the sheets of spray

being flung up when the bow smacked into a swell with

an audible thud. The shock of those collisions could be

felt through the deck and walls of the wheelhouse.

"You are suicidalea"...the captain shouted at

Diego. "The sea will get worse when we reach the

Gulf Stream. We are only a mile or two from

it!"

Diego backed up, braced himself against the aft

wall of the tiny compartment, pointed the pistol in the

center of the captain's back. He held up his hand

to hold off Ocho.

"You took the moneyea"...Diego said accusingly to the

captain.

"Don't be a fool, man."

"America!

Or I shoot you, as God is my witness."

"You want to dro'wn out here, in this watery hell?"

"You took the moneyff"...Diego shouted.

Ocho stepped forward and Diego pointed the pistol

at him. "Backea"...he said. "Get back. I

don't want to shoot you, but I will."

Ocho Sedano leaned disforward. "I think they are

right, what they say. You

are

crazy. You will kill every man and woman on this

boat. Even the babies."

"The boat is overloadedea"...the captain said without

looking at Ocho. "We have to get some weight off.

Throw the fishing gear over, the baggage, everything."

Ocho pulled the door open and stepped out onto the

pitching deck. He took Dora from the fisherman,

pushed her into the wheelhouse, and pulled the door

until it latched.

"We must get rid of some weight. Everything goes

overboard but the people."

The fisherman nodded, took the bags near

his feet and threw them into the white foam being thrown out

by the bow. Then he grabbed Ocho's bag and tossed it

disbbf the young man could stop him.

Madre mia!

Walking on that bucking deck was difficult. Ocho

made

his way forward, picking up every sack and box in reach

and throwing it into the sea. Some people protested, grabbed

their belongings and tried to prevent their loss, but he was

too strong. He tore the bags from the women's

grasp and heaved heavy boxes as if they were empty.

Up the deck he went toward the bow, drenched every time

the bow went in, throwing everything he could get his hands

on into the foam created by the bow's passage.

Other people were throwing things too. Soon the deck

contained only the people, who huddled in small groups,

their backs to the spray. The nets- hanging on the

mast were lowered to the deck, men put into the sea and cut

loose.

Near the bow the motion was vicious. The salt sea

spray slamming back almost took him off his feet.

He caught himself on a line that stabilized the mast,

then worked his way aft holding on to the rail.

He thought the boat was riding easier, but

maybe it was only his imagination.

Then they got into the Gulf Stream. The swells

grew progressively larger, the motion of the boat

even more vicious.

How much of this could the boat take?

People cried out, praying aloud, lifted their hands

to heaven. He could hear the women wailing over the

rumbling of the engine, the pounding of the sea.

He tried the door to the wheelhouse.

Locked!

He rattled the knob, twisted it fiercely,

pulled with all his strength.

"Open up, Diego."

He pounded futilely on the door.

Six people were huddled in the lee of the tiny wheelhouse,

blocking the door. One of them was Dora. He

leaned over her, pounded futilely on the door with his

fist.

He looked down at Dora, who had her head

down.

Frustrated, drained, sick of himself and Diego and

Dora,

he found a spot against the aft wall of the wheelhouse

and buried his head in his arms to keep the spray from his

face.

He was drifting, thinking of his mother, reviewing scenes

from his childhood when Mercedes shook him awake.

Still under the influence of the painkilling drugs, Fidel

Castro opened his eyes to slits and blinked

mightily against the dim light.

"Maximo is here, Fidel, as you asked."

He tried to chase away the past, to come back to the

present. His mouth was dry, his tongue like cotton.

"Time?"

"Almost midnight."

He nodded, looked around the room at the walls, the

ceiling, the dark shapes of people and furniture. He

couldn't see faces.

"A light."

She reached for the switch.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw Maximo standing in

the shadows. He motioned with a finger. Yes, it was

Maximo: now he could see his features.

"Mi amigo."

"Senor Presidente,"

Maximo said.

"Closer, in the light."

Maximo Sedano knelt near the bed.

"I don't have much time left to meea"...Castro

explained. His mouth was so numb that he was

having trouble enunciating his words.

"I want the money brought back."

"To Cuba?"

"Yes. All of it."

"You will have to sign and put your thumbprints on the

transfer cards."

"The money was never mine, you understand."

"I had faith in you,

Senor Presidente.

We all had faith."

"Faith..."

"I will go to my office now, then return."

"Mercedes will admit you."

Ocho Sedano was soaked to the skin, covered with

vomit from the woman beside him, when he heard the cry.

Holding onto the wheelhouse wall with one hand and the

net boom mast with the other, he levered himself erect,

braced himself against the motion of the boat.

Waves were washing over the bow, which seemed to be lower

in the water. The bow wasn't rising to the sea the way

it did when he sat down an hour ago, or maybe

the waves were just higher.

Someone was against the rail, pointing aft.

"Man overboard!"

"Madre mia,

have mercy!"

Another swell came aboard and two people braced

against the lee rail were swept into, the sea as the

boat rolled.

Ocho turned to the wheelhouse, pulled people from against the

door and savagely twisted the latch handle. He

pounded on the door with his left fist.

"Let me in, Diego! So help me, I will

kill you if you don't turn the boat around."

The bow began turning to put the wind and swells more

astern.

A muffled report came from inside the wheelhouse.

Ocho braced himself, then rammed his left fist against

the upper panel of the door. The wood splintered, his

fist went through almost to hisstelbow. He reached down,

un less-than - latched the door, jerked it open.

The captair caret lay on the floor. Diego

Coca stood braced against the back wall, his hands

discovering his face. The pistol was nowhere in sight.

The wheel snapped back and forth as the seas slammed

at the rudder.

Ocho bent down to check the captain.

He had a wet place in the middle of his back,

right between his shoulder blades. No pulse.

At least the boat seemed more stable with the, swells behind

it.

STEPHEN

COONTS

For how long? How long would the engine keep running?

The fisherman opened the door, saw Ocho at the

wheel, the dark shape lying on die floor.

"Is he dead"..."...the man shouted.

"Yes."

"We must put out a sea anchor in case the engine

stops. If the boat turns broadside to the sea,

it will be swamped."

"Can you do it?"

"I will get men to helpea"...the fisherman said, and

closed what was left of the door.

A great lassitude swept over Ocho Sedano.

His sin with the girl had brought all of these people here

to die, had brought them to this foundering boat in a rough,

windswept night sea with a million cold stars

looking down without pity.

Then he realized that the forward deck was empty.

Empty!

The people were gone. Into the sea... that must be it! They were

swept overboard.

"Ocho."

Diego put his hand on the young man's shoulder,

gripped hard.

"I didn't mean

to

shoot him. As God is my witness, I did not

mean for this to happen. It was an accident."

Ocho swept the hand away.

He pointed through the glass"...at the forward deck.

"They are gone! Look.

The people are gone!"

"I did not mean for this to happenea"...Diego repeated

mechanically.

"What"..."...Ocho demanded. "What disdid you not intend?

For the captain to die? For your daughter to drown at

sea? For all of those people on that deck to die? What

did you not intend, Diego?"

Oh, my God, that this should happen!

"Answer

me!"

he roared at Diego Coca, who refused to look

forward through the wheelhouse windshield.

"Look, you bastardea"...Ocho ordered through clenched

teeth, and grabbed the smaller man by the

neck. He rammed his head forward against the glass.

"See what your greed and stupidity have cost."

Then he threw Diego Coca to the floor.

The impact of the disaster bowed Ocho's head, bent his

back, emptied his heart. Diego's guilt did

not lessen his, and oh, he knew that well. He,

Ocho Sedano, was

guilty.

His lust had set this chain of events in motion. He

felt as if he were trying to support the weight of the

earth.

Maximo Sedano's office in the finance ministry

reflected his personal taste. The furniture was

simple, deceptively so. The woods were

hardwoods from the Amazon rain forest, crafted in

Brazil by masters. Little souvenirs from his travels

across Europe and Latin America sat on the

desk and credenza and hung on the walls, small

things of little value because expensive trinkets would be

impolitic.

He turned on the light, then walked to the huge

floor safe, which he unlocked attd opened. He

found the drawer he wanted, removed a stiff

document envelope, took it to his desk and

adjusted the light.

With the contents of the envelope spread out on the highly

polished mahogany, Maximo Sedano paused and

looked around the room with unseeing eyes. He

blinked several times, then leaned back in his chair and

stretched.

There were four bank accounts in Switzerland, all

controlled by Fidel Castro. The last time

Maximo computed the interest, the amount in the accounts

totaled $53 million. Castro had been very

specific when the accounts were opened years ago; the

accounts were to be denominated in United States

dollars. This choice had worked out extraordinarily

well through the years as the currencies of every other

major trading nation underwent major inflation or

devaluation. The United States dollar was the

modern-day equivalent of gold, although it would

certainly be poor pol-

COONTS

itics for any member of the Castro regime to say

so publicly.

Fifty-three million dollars.

Quite a sum.

Enough to live extraordinarily well for a millennium

or two.

Fidel kept that little nest egg in

Switzerland just in case things went wrong here in this

communist paradise and he had to skedaddle. No

sense living on government charity in some other

squalid communist paradise, like Poland or

Russia or the Ukraine, when a little prior

planning could solve the whole problem. So Fidel

rat-holed a fortune where only he could get at it

and slept soundly at night.

Now he wanted the money back in Cuba.

Not that the money ever really belonged to the Cuban

government. The money came from drug dealers, fees

for using Cuban harbors for sanctuary, fees for

being able to send shipments directly to Cuba,

stockpile the drugs, then ship them on when the time was

right.

The money was really just Castro's personal share of the

drug fees. An even larger chunk of the profits

had gone to army, navy and law enforcement personnel,

all of them, every man in the country who wore a

uniform had been paid; another chunk went

to Castro's lieutenants and political allies.

Maximo had received almost a half million

dollars himself. All in all, the deals with the drug

syndicates had been good public policythe drug

business was highly profitable, giving

Castro money to buy loyalty and so remain in

power, and the business corrupted America, which he

hated. Ah, yes, the money came from the United

States despite the best efforts of the American

government to prevent it. Fidel had savored that

irony too.

Fifty-three million.

Maximo pursed his. lips as he thought about the

life of luxury and privilege that a fortune that

size would buy. The money could be invested, some

hotels, bank stock, invested to earn a nice

income without touching the principal.

He could stay in the George V in Paris, ski

in St. Moritz, shop in London and Rome and

yacht all over the Mediterranean.

God, it was tempting!

Fifty-three million.

All he had to do was get Castro's thumbprint on

the transfer order. Without that thumbprint, the banks

would not move a solitary dollar.

Really, those Swiss banks ... Maximo had

urged Castro to transfer the money to Spanish and

Cuban banks for months, ever since the dictator

was diagnosed with cancer. If he died with the

money still in Switzerland, prying money out of those

banks was going to be like peeling fresh paint from a

wall with fingernails. And the drug dealers thought their

racket was profitable!

But why be a piker? Why settle for $53

million when there was a lot more, somewhere?

From his pocket he removed a coin, a gold

five-peso coin dated 1915. There was a

portrait of Josd Marti on one side and the

crest of Cuba on the other.

Gold circulated in Cuba until the

revolution, until Fidel and the communists declared it

was no longer legal tender and called it in, allowing

the peso to float on the world market.

Maximo rubbed the gold coin with his fingers. By his

calculations, based upon Ministry of Finance

records, almost 1.2 million ounces of gold were

surrendered to the government in return for paper

money.

One million, two hundred thousand ounces ...

about thirty-seven

tons

of gold. On the world market, that thirtyseven tons

of gold should be worth about $360 million.

A man who could get his hands on that hoard

would be on easy street for the rest of his life.

Yes, indeed.

The only problem was finding it. It wasn't in the

Finance Ministry vaults, it wasn't in the

vaults of the Bank of Cuba, on account at

banks in Switzerland or London or New

York or Mexico City ... it was gone!

Thirty-seven tons of gold, vanished into thin

air.

If a man could lay hands on that gold... well,

Alejo Vargas and Hector Sedano could fight

over the presidency of Cuba, and may the better

man win. Maximo would take the gold. If he

could find it.

He had a few ideas about where it might be. In

fact, he had been quietly researching the problem

since he took over the Finance Ministry. Eight

years of ransacking files, talking to old

employees, looking at clues, thinking about the

problemthe gold had to be in Cuba, in Havana.

Thirtyseven tons of gold.

A-life of ease and luxury in the spas of

Europe, mingling with the rich and famous, surrounded

by beautiful women and the best of everything ...

But first the $53 million.

He would type the account numbers on the transfer

orders and the accounts the money was to be transferred

to. He would use the secretary's typewriter.

He had the account numbers written in the notebook

he removed from the safe. He flipped through the

notebook now, found the page, stared at the

numbers.

How closely would Fidel check the order?

The man is sick, drugged, dying. He is barely

conscious. Unless he has the numbers of the accounts in

the Bank of Cuba by his bedside, he 'II be

none the wiser.

But what if he does? What if he has the

numbers written down in a book or diary and hands

the transfer order to Mercedes to check? What then?

Fifty-three million. More money than God

has.

He remembered the old days when he was young, when

Castro walked the earth like Jesus Christ with a

Cuban accent. Ah, the fire of the revolution, how

the true believers were going to change the world!

Instead, time changed them, America bled them, and

life defeated them.

Maximo had been loyal to Fidel and the

revolution. No one could ever say he was

not. He had been with Fidel

since he was twenty-four years old, just back from the

university in Spain. He had endured the good times

and the bad, never uttered a single word of criticism.

He had faith in Fidel, proclaimed it

publicly and demanded it of others.

Now Castro was dying. In just a few days he would be

beyond regrets.

Fifty-three million.

The pounding the overloaded boat had taken buckjng

the heavy Gulf Stream swells opened the seams

somewhat, and now the fisherman was pumping out the water

with the bilge pump, which received its power from the

enginedriven generator.

"As long as we can keep the engine running, as long

as the seams don't open any more than they are,

we'll be all right."

"How much fuel do we have on board?"

The fisherman went to check.

Ocho was at the helm, steering almost due east. With the

wind and sea behind her, the

Angel del Mar

rode better. Now the motion was a rocking as the

swells swept under the stern. Very little roll from"

side to side.

Of the eighty-four people who had been aboard when the

boat left the harbor in Cuba, twenty-six

remained alive. The captain's body lay against the

wheelhouse wall.

Ocho found Diego's pistol and put it in his

belt. He physically carried Diego from the

wheelhouse and tossed him on the deck.

Fifty-seven living human beings, men, women, and

babies, had gone into the sea. There was no way in the

world to go back to try to rescue them. Even if he

and the fisherman could find those people in the water, in the

darkness, in this sea, the pounding of heading back into the

swells would probably cause the boat to take on

more water, endangering the lives of those who remained

aboard.

No, the people swept overboard were lost to their fate,

whatever that might be.

The living twenty-six would soon join them, Ocho

told himself. The boat was heading east, away from

Florida.

Perhaps if the sea calmed somewhat, they should bring the

boat to a more southerly heading and return to Cuba.

That, he decided, was their only chance.

Cuba. They would have to return.

Why wait? Every sea mile increased the

likelihood of the engine quitting or the boat

sinking.

He turned the helm a bit, worked the boat's bow

to a more southerly heading. The roll became, more

pronounced. The wind came more over the right stern

quarter.

How long until dawn? An hour or two?

The door to the wheelhouse opened. Diego was standing

there, the whites of his eyes glistening in the dim

light. "Turn back toward Florida! No one

wants to go back to Cuba."

"It's the only way. We'll all die trying

to make it to Florida in this sea."

"I was dead in Cuba all those yearsea"...Diego

Coca shouted. "I refuse to go go back! I

refuse."

Ocho hit him in the mouth. One mighty jab with his

left hand as he twisted his body, so all his weight

was behind the punch. Diego went down backward, hit

his head on the deck coaming, and lay still.

Dora wailed, crawled toward her unconscious

father.

Ocho closed the door to the wheelhouse, brought the

boat back to its southeast heading.

Soon the door opened again and the fisherman

stepped inside. "We have fuel for another ten or

twelve hours. No more than that."

"We'll be back hi Cuba then."

caret That's our only chance."

The stars in the east were fading when the engine quit.

After trying for a minute to start the engine, the fisherman

dashed below.

Ocho abandoned the helm. The boat rolled

sickeningly in the swells.

At least the swells were smaller than they were earlier

in the night, m the middle of the Gulf Stream.

The fisherman came up on deck after fifteen

minutes, his clothes soaked in diesel fuel.

"It's no useea"...he said. "The engine has had it."

"What about the water in the bilges? Is it still coming

in?"

"We'll "have to take turns on the hand pump."

"What are we going to do about the engine"..."...Ocho asked.

The fisherman didn't reply, merely stood

looking at the swells as the sky grew light in the

east.

The van drove up to the massive,

250-feet-tall extra-highvoltage tower beside the

drainage canal on the southern outskirts

of Havana and backed up toward it. The base of the

tower was surrounded by a ten-foot-high-chain link fence

with barbed wire on top. The access door in the

fence was, of course, padlocked.

The driver of the van and his passenger were both wearing

one-piece overalls. They stretched, looked at the

wires far above, and scratched their heads while they

surveyed the ramshackle four-story apartment

buildings that backed up to the canal. One of the men

extracted a pack of cigarettes from his overalls

and lit one. The nearest apartments were at least sixty

meters away, although for safety reasons the distance

should have been much more. Each of the extra-high-voltage

(Ehv) lines overhead carried 500,000

volts.

The driver of the van was Enrique Poveda. His

passenger was Arquimidez Cabrera. Both men were

citizens of the United States, sons of Cuban

exiles, and bitter enemies of the Castro regime.

Poveda had parked the van so that the rear doors, when

open, almost touched the gate in the chain-link fence.

Now he reached into the van, seized a set of bolt

cutters, and applied the jaws to the padlock on the

gate. One tremendous squeeze and the bar of the

padlock snapped.

Cabrera threw the remnants of the padlock into the

back of the van. He opened the gate in the fence,

set a new, open padlock on the hasp, and stood

looking up at the tower.

The best way to cut the power lines the tower carried

would be to climb the tower and set shaped charges around the

insulators. Unfortunately, the lines carried so

much juice that the hot zones around the wires were

eleven feet in diameter, more in humid weather.

No, the only practical way to cut the lines was

to drop the towers, which would not be difficult. A shaped

charge on each leg should do the job nicely.

Cabrera looked at the angle of the wires leading

into the tower, and the angle away. Yes, once the

legs were severed, the weight and tension of the line should

pull the tower down to the side away from the canal,

into this open area, where the lines would either short out on the

ground or break from the strain of carrying their own

weight.

Timing the explosions would be a problem. This close

to all that energy, a radio-controlled electrical

detonator was out of the question. Chemical timers would be

best, ones that ignited the detonators after a

preset time, although chemical timers were not as

precise as mechanical ones.

All that was for a later day, however. The decision on

when the tower must come down had yet to be made, so today

Cabrera and Poveda would merely set the charges.

They would return later to set the timers and

detonators.

Poveda finished his cigarette and strapped on his

tool belt. This was the fourth tower today. Only this

one and one more to go.

"You ready"..."...he asked Cabrera.

"Let's do it."

Ocho Sedano lived with his older brother Julio,

Julio's wife, and their two children in a tiny apartment

atop a garage just a few hundred yards from Dona

Maria's house. Julio worked in the garage

repairing American cars. The cars were antiques

from the 1950's and there were no spare parts, so Julio

made parts or cannibalized them from the carcasses

behind the garage, cars too far gone for any mechanic

to save. When he wasn't playing baseball,

Ocho helped.

Hector found his brother Julio working in the shop

by the light of several naked bulbs. "Where is

Ocho?"

"Gone."

"Gone where?"

Julio was replacing the valves of an ancient

straight eight under the hood of an Oldsmobile.

The light was terrible, but he was working by feel so it

didn't really matter. He straightened now,

scowled at his older brother.

"He has gone to try his luck in America."

"You didn't try to stop him?"

Julio looked about at the dimly lit shop, the

dirt floor, the shabby old cars. He wiped his

hands on a dirty rag that hung from his belt.

"No, I didn't."

"What if he drowns out there in the Gulf Stream?"

"I have prayed for him."

"That's it? Your little brother? A prayer?"

"What do you think I should have done, Hector?

Tell the boy that he was living smack in the middle

of a communist paradise, that he should be happy here,

happy with his labor and his crust? Bah! He

wants something more from life, something for himself, for his

children."

"If he dies"

"Look around you, Hector. Look at this

squalid, filthy hovel. Look at the way we

live! Most of Cuba lives this way,

except for a precious few like dear Maximo, who

eats the bread that other men earn. You saw him

yesterday at Mima'snothing's too good for our

dedicated revolutionary, Maximo Sedano,

Fidel's right-hand ass-wipe man,"

Julio snorted scornfully, then leaned back under

the hood of the Olds. "I told Ocho to go with

God. I pfayed for him."

"What if he dies out there?"

"Everybody has to dieyou, me, Fidel, Ocho,

all of usthat's just the way it is. They ought to teach

you that in church. At least if Ocho dies he

won't have to listen to any more of Fidel's bullshit.

He won't have to listen to

yours, either. God knows, bullshit is the only thing

on this island wecomh a lot of."

"Have you told

Mima

that he left?"

"I was going to keep my mouth shut until I had

something to tell her."...Julio turned his head to look

at Hector around the edge of the car's hood. "Ocho

is a grown man. He has taken his life in his

own two hands, which is his right. He'll

live or die. He'll get to America or he

won't."

"He should have waited. I asked him to wait."

"For what"..."...Julio demanded.

Hector turned to leave the garage.

"What are we waiting for, Hector? The second

coming?"

Julio came to the door and called after Hector as

he walked away down the street: "How long do I

have to wait to feed my sons? Tell me! I have

waited all my life. I am sick and tired of

waiting. I want to know

nowhow much longer?"

Hector turned in the road and walked back toward

Julio. "Enough!

Enough!"

he roared, his voice carrying. "You squat here in this

hovel waiting for life to get better, waiting for

someone else to make it better! You have no courage

you are not a man! If the future depends on

rabbits like you Cuba will always be a sewer!"

Then Hector turned and stalked away, his head

down, his shoulders bent forward, as if he were walking

into a great wind.

The Officers' Club at Guantanamo

Bay Naval Station was sited on a small hill

overlooking the harbor. From the patio Toad

Tarkington and Rita Moravia could see the carrier

swinging on her anchor near the mouth of the bay.

These days the O Club was usually sparsely

populated. The base was now a military

backwater, no longer a vital part of the U.s.

military establishment. For the last few years the

primary function of the base was to house Cuban

refugees picked up at sea.

Still, the deep blue Caribbean water and low yellow

bills

under a periwinkle sky packed picture-postcard

charm. With cactus and palm trees and magnificent

sunny days, the place reminded Toad of southern

California. If the Cubans ever got their act

together politically, he thought, this place would boom like

southern California, with condos and high-tech

industries sprouting like weeds. Hordes of people waving

money would come here from Philly and New Jersey

to retire. This place had Florida beat all

to hell.

He voiced this opinion to Rita, the only other

person on the patio. It was early in the afternoon; the

two of them had ridden the first liberty boat

in after the ship anchored. Jake Grafton sent them

packing because today was their anniversary.

They had a room reserved at the BOQ for tonight.

They intended to eat a relaxed dinner at the club,

just the two of them, then retire for a private

celebration.

"The Cubans may not want hordes from Philly

and Hoboken and Ashtabula moving inea"...Rita

objected.

"I wouldn't mind having a little place in one of these

villages around here my own selfea"...Toad said,

gesturing vaguely to the west or north. "Do some

fishing, lay around getting old and fat and tan, let

life flow by. Maybe build a golf course,

spend my old age selling balls and watering

greens. This looks like world-class golf country

to me. Aaah, someday."

"Someday, busterea"...Rita said, grinning. Toad

liked to entertain her with talk about retirement, about

loafing away the days reading novels and newspapers

and playing golf, yet by ten o'clock on a lazy

Sunday morning in the States he was bored stiff.

He played golf once every other year, if it

didn't rain.

Now he sipped his beer and inhaled a few

mighty lungfuls of this clean, clear, perfect

air. "Feel that sun! Ain't life delicious,

woman?"

They had a nice dinner of Cuban cuisine, a

fresh fish, beans and rice. By that time the club was

filling up with junior officers from the squadrons

aboard ship, in for lib-

erty. The noise from the bars was becoming raucous when

Toad and Rita finished their dinner and headed back

to the patio with cups of coffee.

"Maybe I better check on my

chicksea"...Rita said, and detoured for the bar.

Toad paused in the doorway, staring into the dark

room, which was made darker by the brilliant sunlight

shining outside the windows.

"Commander Tarkingtonff"...Two of the young pilots

came over to where Toad stood with his coffee cup.

"Join us for a few minutes, won't you? We're

drinking shooters. Have one with us."

Rita was already standing by the table. Toad allowed

himself to be persuaded.

A trayful of brimming shot glasses sat on

the small round table. As Toad watched, one of these

fools set the liquor in the glasses on fire

with a butane cigarette lighter.

"Okay, Commander, show us how it's done!"

Toad looked at Rita, who was studying him with a

noncommittal raised eyebrow.

He sat down, one of the youngsters placed a glass

in front of him. The blue flame was burning

nicely.

It had been years since he did this. Was it

Rota, that time he got so blind drunk he passed out

while waiting for the taxi? Ah, but the navy was

politically correct now. Nobody got drunk

anymore.

Toad steadied himself, took a deep breath,

exhaled, and poured the burning brandy down his throat.

It seemed to burn all the way down. Some of the

liquid trickled from his lips, still on fire, but he

licked it up with his tongue. Was he burning? He

didn't think so. He wiped his mouth with the back of his

hand just to make sure.

The members of his audience were gazing at him with

openmouthed astonishment. "Jesus, sir! We always

blow the fire out before we drink it."

Toad didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You

goddamn pussiesea"...he said, and tossed off another

one.

"Our anniversary, and you're drunk!"

Toad Tarkington felt like he had been hit by a

large truck, an eighteen wheeler, at least. He

turned in the bathroom door and looked carefully

at his spouse. He squinted to make his eyes

focus better.

"I am

not

drunk! A bit tipsy, I will grant you that. But

not drunk."...He swelled his chest and tried to look

sober. "Those puppies, thinking they could drink an

old dog like me under the table."...He snorted his

derision. ""We blow the fire out before we

drink." Ha, ha, and ha!"

Rita was sooo mad! "Oh, you"

"Excuse me."...Toad held up a finger. "Just a

minute or two, and we will continue this discussion

until you have said everything that needs to be said. There is

undoubtedly a lot of it and I am sure it will

take a while. Just one little minute." He closed

the bathroom door and retched into the commode. Then he

swabbed his forehead with a wet washcloth.

He felt better. He stared at himself in the

mirror.

You look like hell, you damned fool.

He took a long drink of water, swabbed

his face with a towel, then opened the door, and said,

"Okay, you were saying?"

She wasn't there. The room was empty.

Even her bag was gone.

He lay down in the bed. Oh, that felt gooood.

Maybe he should just lie here for a few minutes

until she cooled off and he sobered up

completely, then he would find her and apologize.

The room was whirling around, but whein he rolled on his

side it steadied out somewhat and he drifted right off.

Jake Grafton was alone at a table in the corner

of the O Club dining room when Rita Moravia

saw him and came over. He stood while she seated

herself. "You're by yourself? Where's Toad?"

"Sleeping it off. He was in the bar with your young studs

and had four drinks. Four! He's whacked."

Jake Grafton chuckled. "I don't think

I've seen him drink more than an occasional beer

or glass of wine with dinner in years."

"He doesn'tea"...she said. "Poor guy can't handle

it anymore."

"Heck of an anniversary celebrationea"...Jake

said, eyeing her.

"I've been luckyea"...Rita said simply.

"Toad Tarkmgton and I were made for

each other. I don't know how the powers that rule the

universe figure out who marries whom, but I

sure got lucky."

"I know what you meanea"...Jake said. Then he

smiled, and Rita knew he was thinking of his wife,

Callie. Jake Grafton always smiled when he

thought of her.

"So, maybe you should join me for dinnerea"...Jake said,

"since Toad is temporarily indisposed and

Callie is temporarily not here."

"I've already eatenThat and tongues might wag,

Admiralea"...she said with mock seriousness.

"And probably will. Won't do me or thee any

good."

"I'm not going to live my life to please

pinheadsea"...Rita replied. "I'll join you for a

drink."

After they gave their orders to the waiter, Jake said,

"Tell me about the V-22. I've been wondering

about that plane but haven't had the chance to talk to you."

Away Rita went, talking about airplanes and

flying, two subjects they both enjoyed

immensely. The breeze coming through the open doors of the

dining room stirred the curtains and made the candles

on the tables flicker in the evening

twilight.

They were drinking after-dinner coffee when Rita

remarked, "Toad says that you still haven't heard from

Washington about your next set of orders."

'That's right."

"I don't want to talk about something you would rather

STEPHEN COONTS

not discuss, but he says they may ask you

to retire."

"They might. I've thrown my weight around a few

times in the past and made some enemies, in uniform and

out."...He shrugged. "Every flag officer gets passed

over for a promotion at some point and asked

to retire. My turn will come sooner or later.

Maybe sooner."

"Are you looking forward to retirement?""...Haven't

thought about it that muchea"...he said. "To be honest, the

prospect of spending more time with Gallic has great

appeal."...He rubbed his forehead, then grinned

ruefully. "It'll hurt if they don't find me

another job, give me another star next year.

Yet even a CNO gets told it's time to go.

When it happens to me, Gallic and I will get on

with the rest of our lives. The tram is, when I

decided to stay in the navy after Vietnam

I never expected to get this far: thought it'd be

terrific if I made commander or captain. Here

I am with two stars in charge of a carrier battle

group."...He snorted derisively. "Guess it

all goes to prove I'm an ungrateful bastard,

huh?""...It goes to prove you're human.""...ally are

very kind, Rita.""...ally've really enjoyed the navy,

haven't you?""...Every tour has been a challenge, an

adventure. Every set of orders I've had, I've

thought, Oh, wow, this will be fun. I can't say

I've enjoyed every day of it, because I haven't, but

it's been a good career. Like most people who have worn the

uniform, I did the best I could wherever they needed

me. I've worked with great people all along the way. I

have no regrets."

One of Jake's aides came over to the table,

smiled at Rita, then whispered in the admiral's

ear. "The ship that left here four days ago carrying

biological warheads to Norfolk never arrived.

It is overdue."

"Civilization begins when the strong finally realize

they have a duty to protect the weak. That duty is the

foundation of civilization, the bedrock on which everything

else rests."

Hector Sedano stood in the pulpit and

looked at the sea of sweating, glistening faces that

packed the church to overflowing. He could feel the heat

from their bodies. There must be close to two hundred

people jammed in here.

Hector continued: "For centuries we, the people, have

abdicated our duty to a few strong men. Rule

us, we said, and do not steal too much. Do not be too

corrupt, do not betray us too much, do not shame us

beyond endurance. Protect the weak, the elderly, the

helpless, the sick, the very young, protect them from those

who would prey upon them. And protect us. If you

grant us protection you may steal a little, enough

to become filthy rich, as long as you do not rub our

faces in it.

"We give unto you the strong one a great trust because

the faith to face the evil in the world is not in us.

"O strong one, protect us because we lack the

courage to protect ourselves."

The crowd was rapt, wanting more.

Hector Sedano had given this very same speech more

than a hundred times. Only the faces in the

audience were different. He leaned forward, reached out as

if to grab the people. They had to understand, to feel his

passion, or Cuba would never change. Perspiration

ran down his face, soaked his shirt.

"I say to you here tonight that our duty can be ignored no

longer. The hands that made the universe are delivering

our destiny into our very own human hands. We must

seize the day when it comes. We must acknowledge before

God and before each other that the future of this nation is

ours

to write,

ours

to invent,

ours

to live, and

ours

to answer for before disthe throne of heaven on Judgment

Day."

A thunderous applause shook the tiny church.

When it died, Hector continued, "I say to you that the

future of

our

families is on

our

heads, that the fate of this people is

our

responsibility and

our

destiny.

"We shall drink every drop that God pours for us, be it

sweet or bitter, be it thin or full, be it a

tiny trickle or a

great river. We shall not turn aside from that righteous

cup."

The applause swelled and swelled and filled the

room to overflowing; it spilled through the open doors and

windows and rushed bravely away to do battle with the

silence and darkness of the night.

"We pulled it offea"...Admiral Delgado told

Alejo Vargas.

"Nuestra Senora de Colon

is stranded on a rocky reef near the entrance

to Bahia de Nipe. Santana is ready and

waiting."

"What took so long?"

"When she left Guantanamo the Americans

swit a destroyer to accompany her. The captain was

beside himself he thought the destroyer would accompany them

all the way to Norfolk. He faked an engineering

casualty in the Windward Passage, crawled

along at three knots. Of course, then the

destroyer refused to leave. He finally had

to announce that he had fixed the problem and steam off

at twelve knots before the destroyer

turned back."

Vargas smiled. "If this works, I will be very

grateful to you, Delgado."

'There are real problems, which we have discussed. I

give this operation no more than a fifty percent chance

of success."

"Fifty percent is optimisticea"...Alejo

Vargas replied. "I suspect the odds are a

lot worse than that. Yet they are good enough to take a

chance, and if we don't do that, we have only ourselves

to blame, eh?"

"Doing business with the North Koreans is an

invitation to be double-crossed. How do you know they will

perform?"

"We need long-range ballistic missiles, the

North Koreans want well-designed,

well-made biological warheads. The exchange

is fair."

"I still do not trust themea"...Delgado countered. "This

is a once-in-a-lifetime deal."

Vargas changed the subject: Delgado was not a

partner, he was the hired help. 'Tell me about your

evening cruise with Maximo Sedano."

"He wants political backing when Castro

dies."

"What did you promise him?"

"I told him you buy people or blackmail them, that

he has no chance."

"And Alba?"

"He agreed with my assessment."

Vargas smiled. "Let us hope Maximo

stifles his ambitions. For his sake. You told the

man the honest truth; if he chooses to disregard it

the consequences are on his head."

Delgado said nothing. He suspected Vargas had

already talked to Alba: the admiral hoped the general

didn't try to dress up the tale. Telling

Vargas the truth was the only way to stay alive.

Toad Tarkington was sitting by the window in the BOQ

room thinking about biological weapons and marines

dug in around a warehouse when Rita unlocked the

door and came in. She was still in uniform. His head

was thumping like a toothache and he felt like hell.

"Some anniversaryea"...he said. "1 feel like an

ass."

She came over to the chair, knelt and put her arms

around him.

"This wasn't the way the evening was supposed to go..

I'm sorry, Rita."

"Our life together has been terrific,

Toad-man. You're still the guy I want."

He hugged her back.

"Let's go to bedea"...she said.

The emotional impact of what he had done didn't

hit Maximo Sedano until the jet to Madrid

leveled off after the climbout from Havana

airport.

He took the transfer cards bearing Castro's

thumbprint from his inside left breast pocket, and

holding them so no one else in first class could read

them, studied them carefully.

He was holding $53 million in his hands and he could

feel the heat. Hoo, man! He had done it!

He took a chance, a long chance. When he walked

into Castro's bedroom he had had the real transfer

cards in his left jacket pocket and the ones bearing

his bank account numbers in his right. Mercedes

wasn't there that second time he was admitted, which was

a blessing. His former sister-in-law was too sharp,

saw too much. She might have decided something was

wrong merely from looking at his face.

So it was just Fidel and a male nurse, a nobody

who handled bedpans and urinals. There wasn't a

notebook or ledger anywhere in sight, and Fidel

certainly was in no condition to closely

scrutinize the cards. He signed the cards,

transferring die money to Maximo, then let

Maximo put his thumb in an ink pad and press it

on each of them.

Fidel said little. He had obviously been given

an injection for pain and was paying minimal attention

to what went on around him. He merely grunted when

Maximo said good-bye.

The Maximo Sedano who walked into that bedroom was

his

the soon-to-be unemployed Cuban finance minister

with a cloudy future. The Maximo Sedano who

walked out was the richest Cuban south of Miami.

Just like

that backslash

The icing on the cake was that the Swiss accounts should have

perhaps a million more of those beautiful Yankee

dollars as unpd interest. Every penny was going to be

transferred to Maximo's accounts at another bank

in Zurich. It wouldn't be there long, however. Tomorrow

morning after he turned in these transfer cards

to Fidel's banks, he would walk across the street

and send the money from his accounts to those he had opened in

Spain, Mexico, Germany, and Argentina. These were

commercial accounts held by various shell

corporations that Maximo had established years ago

to launder money for Fidel and the drug

syndicates, accounts'over which he had sole

signature authority. The shell corporations would

quickly write a variety of very large checks to a

half dozen other companies Maximo owned. After a

long, tortuous trail around the globe and back

again, the money would eventually wind up in Maximo's

personal accounts all over Europe.

The scheme hinged on the bank secrecy laws in

various nations, not the least of which was Switzerland, and the

fact that anyone trying to trace the money would see

only disorganized pieces of the puzzle, not the big

picture.

Maximo smiled to himself and sighed in contentment.

"Would you care for a drink, sir"..."...the flight

attendant asked. She was a beautiful slender

woman, with dark eyes and clear white skin.

"A glass of white wine, please, something from

Cataluna."

"I'll see what we have aboard, sir."...She

smiled gently and left him.

Maximo told himself that he would find a woman like that

one of these days, a beautiful woman who

appreciated the finer things in life and

appreciated him for providing them.

His wife was expecting him to return to Cuba in

three days: "I must go to Europe in the

morningea"...he had told her. "An urgent matter

has arisen.".

She wanted to go with him on this trip of courseanything

to get off the island, even for a little while.

"Darling, I wish you could, but there wasn't time

to make reservations. I got the only empty seat

on the airliner."

She was not happy. Still, what could she say? He

promised to bring her something expensive from a

jeweler, and that promise pacified her.

The flight attendant brought the glass of wine and

he sipped it, then put his head back in the seat and

closed his eyes. Ah, yes,

He had a new identity hi his wallet: an

Argentine passport, driver's license and

identity papers, a birth certificate, several

valid credit cards, a bank account and a real

address in Buenos Aires, all in the name of

Eduardo Jos6 Lopez, a nice common surname.

This identity had been constructed years before and

serviced regularly so that he might move money

around the globe when drug smugglers sought

to pay Fidel Castro. Becoming the good Senor

Lopez would be as easy as presenting the passport

when checking into a hotel.

He had the papers for two other identities in a

safe deposit box in Lausanne, across the lake

from Geneva.

Maxlmo Sedano fingered the bank transfer cards

one more time, then reclined his seat.

How does it feel to be rich? Damned good, thank

you very much,

Lord, it was tempting. Just walk away with the money as

Senor Lopez, and poof! disappear into thin air.

And yet, the gold was there for the taking. His plans were

made, his allies ready... all he had to do was

find the gold and get it out of the country.

He reclined his seat, closed his eyes, and savored

the feeling of being rich.

* * *

Dona Sedano was sitting on her porch, inhaling the

gentle aroma of the tropical flowers that grew around

her porch in profusion and watching the breeze stir the

petals, when she saw Hector walking down the

road. He turned in at her gate and came up

to the porch.

After he kissed her he sat on the top

step, leaned back so he could see her face.

"Why aren't you in school, teaching"..."...she asked.

He made a gesture, looked away to the north,

toward the sea.

There was nothing out that way but a few treetops waving

in the wind, with puffy clouds floating overhead.

He turned back to look into her face, reached for

her hand. "Ocho went on a boat.two nights

ago. They were trying to reach the Florida Keys."

"Did they make it?"

"I don't know. If they make it we won't hear

for days. Weeks perhaps. If they don't reach

Florida we may never hear."

Dona Maria leaned forward and touched her son's

hair. Then she put her twisted hands back in her

lap.

'Thank you for telling me."

"Ocho should have told you."

"Good-byes can be difficult."

"I suppose."

"You are the brightest of my sons, the one with the most

promise. Why didn't you go to America,

Hector? You had plenty of chances. Why did you

stay hi this hopeless place?"

"Cuba is my home."...He gestured

helplessly. "This is the work God has given me

to do."

Dona Maria gently massaged her hands. Rubbing

them seemed to ease the pain sometimes.

"I might as well tell you the rest of

itea"...Hector said. "Ocho got a girl

pregnant. He went on the boat with the

girl and her father. The father wants Ocho to play

baseball in America."

"Pregnant?"

"Ocho told me, made me promise not to tell.

He did not confess to me as a priest but as a

brother, so I am exercising an older brother's

prerogativeI am breaking that promise."

She sighed, closed her eyes for a moment.

"If God is with them, they may make it across the

Straitsea"...Hector said. "There is always that

hope."

Tears ran down her cheeks.

It was at that moment that Dona Maria saw the human

condition more clearly than she ever had before. She and

Hector were two very mortal people trapped

by circumstance, by fate, between two vast eternities.

The past was gone, lost to them. The people they loved who were

dead were gone like smoke, and they had only

memories of them. The future was ... well, the

future was unknowable, hidden in the haze. Here there was

only the present, this moment, these two mortal people with

their memories of all that had been.

Hector stroked his mother's hair, kissed her

tears, then went down the walk to the road. When he

looked back his mother was still sitting where he had left

her, looking north toward the sea.

Ocho was probably dead, Hector realized,

another victim of the Cuban condition.

When, O Lard, when will it stop? How many more people must

drown in the sea? How many more lives must be blighted

and ruined by the lack of opportunity here? How many more

lives must be sacrificed on the altar of

political ambition?

As he walked toward the village bus stop, he

lifted his hands and roared his rage, an angry shout

mat was lost in the cathedral of the sky.

The pain was there, definitely there, but it wasn't

cutting at him, doubling him over. Fidel Castro

made them get him up, had them put him in a chair

behind his desk. He wanted the flag to his right

Mercedes and the nurse helped him into his green

fatigue shirt.

He was perspiring then, gritting his teeth

to get through this.

"Do you know what you want to say"..."...Mercedes

asked.

"I think so."

The camera crew was fiddling with the lights, arranging

power cords.

"I want to say something to you, right nowea"...she

whispered, "while you are sharp and not heavily

sedated."

His eyes went to her.

"I love you, Fidel. With all my heart."

"And I you, woman. Would that we had more time."

"Ah, time, what a whore she is. We had each

other, and mat was enough."

He bit his lip, reached for her hand. "If only

we had met years ago, before"

He winced again. "Better start the tapeea"...he

said. "I haven't much time."...He straightened,

gripped the arms of the chair so hard his knuckles

turned white.

With the lights on, Fidel Castro looked

straight into the camera, and spoke: "Citizens of

Cuba, I speak to you today for the last time. I am

fatally ill and my days on this earth will soon be

over. Before I leave you, however, I wish

to spend a few minutes telling you of my dream for

Cuba, my dream of what our nation can become in the

years ahead...."

The door opened and Alejo Vargas walked hi.

Behind him was Colonel Pablo Santana.

"Well, well,

Senor Presidente. I

heard you were making a speech to the video cameras this

afternoon. Do not mind us; please continue. We will

remain silent spectators, out

of die sight of the camera, two loyal Cubans

representing millions of others."

"I did not invite you here, Vargas.""...'True, you

did not,

Senor Presidente.

But things seem to be slipping away from you these

daysimportant things. The world will not stop turning on

its axis while you lie in bed taking drugs."

"Get out! This is my office."

Alejo Vargas settled into a chair. He turned

to the camera crew. 'Turn that thing off. The lights

too. Then you may take a short break. We will

call you when we want you to return."

The extinguishment of the television lights made the

room seem very dark.

Colonel Santana escorted the technicians"

from the room and closed the door behind them. He stood

with his back against the door, his arms crossed.

"If you are pushing the button near your knee

to summon the security staff, you are wasting your

timeea"...Vargas said. "Members of my staff have

replaced them."

"Say what you want, then get outea"...Castro said.

Vargas got out a cigarette, lit it, taking his

time. "I am wondering about Maximo Sedano. The

night before last he was here, you signed something for him,

he left this morning on a plane to Madrid, with a

continuation on to Zurich. What was that all about?"

Fidel said nothing. Mercedes noticed that he was

perspiring again.

"I am in no rushea"...Vargas said. "I have all the

time in the world."

Fidel ground his teeth. "He went to move

funds. On a matter of interest to the Finance

Ministry."

"The question is, where will the funds end up when their

electronic journey is over? Tell me that,

please."

"In the government's accounts in the Bank of

Cuba, in Havana."

"I ask this question because the man who was here last

night did not see you check the account numbers in

any book or ledger. You have the account numbers

memorized?"

"No."

"So in reality you don't know where Maximo

Sedano will wire the money?"

"He is a trustworthy man. Loyal. I cannot

be everywhere, see everything, and must trust people. I have

trusted people all my Me."

"How much money are we talking about,

Senor PresidenteThat

"I don't know."

"Millions?"

"Yes."

"Tens of millions?"

"Yes."

"Dios mio,

our Maximo must be a saint! I wouldn't trust my

own mother with that kind of money."

"I wouldn't trust your mother with a drunken

sailorea"...Mercedes said. "Not if he had two

centavos in his pocket."...She handed some pills

to Castro, who glanced down at them.

"Water, pleaseea"...he whispered. He

put the pills on the desk in front of him.

Vargas continued: "If we ever see the face of

Maximo Sedano again,

Senor Presidente,

you have me to thank. I am having one of my men meet

the finance minister in Zurich. We will try to convince

Maximo to do his duty to his country."

Mercedes handed Fidel a glass of water. He

picked up several of the pills, put them in his mouth,

then swallowed some water. Then he put the last

pill in his mouth and took another swig.

Vargas was a moral nihilist, Castro thought,

a man who believed in nothing. There were certainly

plenty of those. He had known what Vargas was for many

years and had used nun anyway because he was good at his

job, which

STEPHEN COONTS

was a miserable one.

We entrusted it to a swine so that we need not dirty

our hands.

Another mistake.

"I need restea"...he said, and tried to rise.

"Noea"...Vargas said fiercely. He leaned on the

desk with both hands, lowered his face near Fidel.

"You still have a statement to make before the

cameras."

"Nothing for you."

"You think you have nothing to lose, do you not? You think,

Alejo could kill me, but what is that? He merely

speeds up the inevitable."

Fidel looked Vargas square in the eye. "I

should have killed you years and years agoea"...he said. He

took his hands from the arms of his chair and wrapped them

around his stomach.

"There is no regret as bitter as the murder you

didn't commit. How true that is! But you didn't

kill me because you needed me, Fidel,. needed me

to ferret out your enemies, find who was whispering against

you and bring you then* names. Help you shut their mouths,

cut out the rot without killing the tree.

"Kill me? Without me how would you have kept your

wretched subjects loyal? Who would have kept these

miserable

guajiros

starving on this sandy rock in the sea's middle from

cutting the flesh from your bones? Who would have provided

the muscle to keep you in office when the Russians

abandoned you and nothing went right? When everything you touched

backfired?

"Kill me?

Ha!

That would have been like killing yourself.

"Now I have come for mine. Not centavos, like in the

past. I want what is mine for keeping you in power

all these years, for keeping the peasants from slicing

your throat when in truth that was precisely what you

deserved. You are a miserable failure, Fidel,

as a man and as a servant of Cuba. And you are

going to die a revered old manGod,

what a joke! Hailed as the Cuban Washington

for the next ten centuries...."

Vargas sneered.

"Now still have the power of life or death, Fidel. I

think you will make your statement in front of the camera.

You will name me, Alejo Vargas, your loyal,

trusted minister of interior as your successor; you will

plead with all loyal Cubans everywhere

to recognize the wisdom of your choice."

Sweat ran in rivulets from Fidel's face,

dripped from his beard. His voice came out a hoarse

whisper. "Forty years" service to my country, and

you expect me to hand Cuba over to you? To rape

tilde for your profit? Not on your life."

"Don't be a fool. You have nothing to bargain with."

"Kill me. See what you gamea"...Fidel

said, his voice barely audible.

"You'll die soon enough, never fear. But before you do

Colonel Santana will butcher Mercedes on this

table while you watch."

"Have you no honor?"

"Don't talk to me of honor. You have told so many

lies you can't remember ever telling the truth. You have

profaned the Church, denied God, sent loyal

Cuban soldiers to die in Angola, demanded that

generation after generation give their blood to fulfill your

destiny as Cuba's savior. You have impoverished a

nation, reduced them to beggary to salve your ego. I

spit on you and all that you would have us become."

And he did.

Fidel brought a hand up to wipe away the

spittle. "Fuck youff"...he whispered.

"And you too,

Lider Maximal"

Vargas shot back. "I do not pretend to be

God's other son, strutting in green fatigues and

spouting platitudes while the people worship me. But

enough of this. Before we get to the camera, tell me where the

gold is."

"The gold?"

STEPHEN COONTS

"The gold, Fidel. The gold from the peso coins

that the Ministry of Finance melted down into ingots, the

gold ingots that you and Che and Edis Lopez and

Jos6 Otero carried away. How much gold was

there? Forty or fifty tons? You certainly

didn't spend it on the people of Cuba. Where is it?"

A grimace twisted Castro's lips, "You'll

never find it, that's for certain. Edis and Jos6

died within weeks of Che. I am the only living

person who knows where mat gold is; I am taking

the secret to my grave."

"The gold isn't yours."

"Nor is it yours, you son of a pig."

"We will let you watch us cut up Mercedes. We

will make a tiny incision on her abdomen, pull out

a loop of small intestine. I will ask you questions, and

every time you refuse to answer Colonel Santana will

pull out more intestine. You will tell us everything we

want-to know or we will see what her insides

look like. Colonel?"

Santana grabbed Mercedes by the arms. With one hand

he grabbed the front of her dress and ripped it from

her body.

Fidel Castro's jaw moved. Then he went

limp, slumping in his chair.

"Fideir

Mercedes screamed.

Vargas leaped for Castro, pried open his jaw and

raked a piece of celluloid from his mouth with his

finger.

"Poisonea"...he said disgustedly. He felt

Castro's wrist for a pulse.

"Stone cold dead."...He tossed down the wrist and

turned toward Mercedes.

"You

gave him the poison! He had the capsule in his

mouth."

Alejo Vargas slapped her as hard as he could.

"And this is for insulting my mother,

puta backslash was

He slapped her again so hard she went to her knees,

the side of her face numb. "If you do it again I

will cut your tongue outea"...he added, his voice almost a

hiss.

Then Vargas took a deep breath and steadied himself.

The sight of Fidel Castro's corpse drained the

rage from bun and filled him with adrenaline, ready

for the race to his destiny. He had waited all his

life for this moment and now it was here.

"Listen to misea"...the technician said, and

handed the earphones to William Henry Chance. They

were crammed into a tiny van with the logo of the

Communications Ministry on the side. The van was

parked on a side street near Chance's hotel, but

with an excellent view of the Interior Ministry.

Chance put on the headphones.

"We recorded this stuff early mis morningea"...the

technician told Chance's associate, Tommy

Carmeltini. "Getting to you without stirring up the

Cubans was the trick. Wait until you hear this

stuff."

"What is it"..."...Cannellini asked.

"Vargas and his thug, Santana, hi the

minister's office. They're talking about a speech

they want Castro to make in front of cameras.

A political will, Vargas called it They are

writing it, debating the wording."

"What do they want it to sayour

"They want Castro to name Vargas as his

successor, his heir."*

"Will he do that?"'

"They seem to think he will."

"Have we heard anything back from Washington about that

ship referencethe

Coldnl... Nuestra Senora de Co

backslash 6nThat

"No. Something like that will take days to percolate through

the bureaucracy."

"I was hoping the reference to North Koreans and

biological warheads would light a fire under

somebody."

"It always takes a while before we smell the

smoke of burning trousers."

CarmelUni watched Chance's face as he

listened to the

STEPHEN COONTS

tape. William Henry Chance, attorney and

CIA agent, certainly didn't look like a man

who would be at home in the shadow world of spies and

espionage. But then appearances were often deceiving.

Carmellini had been a burglarmore or less

semi-retiredattending the Stanford University

Law School when he was visited one day by a

CIA recruiter, a woman who took him to lunch

in the student union cafeteria and asked him about

bis plans for the future. He still remembered the

conversation. He was going into business, he said.

Maybe politics. He thought that someday he might

run for public office.

"A prosecution for stealing the Peabody

diamond from the Museum of Natural History in

Washington would probably crimp your plans,

wouldn't it?"' she said sweetly.

He gaped. Sat there like a fool with his mouth hanging

open, the brain completely stalled.

He had seen her credentials, which certainly looked

official enough. Central Intelligence Agency.

The Government with a capital G. But there had never

been the slightest hint that anyone was on his trail.

Not even a sniff.

"It would do thatea"...he managed.

After a bit, the question of how she knew formed hi his

mind, and he began trying to figure out how to ask it

hi a nonincriminating way.

"You're wondering, I supposeea"...she said

matter-of-factly between sips of her coffee, "how

we learned of your involvement."

Unable to help himself, he nodded yes.

"Your pal talked. The Miami PD got him

on another burglary, so he threw you to the wolves

to get a lighter sentence."

Well, there it was. His very best friend in the whole world

and the only guy who knew everything had sold him out.

"You need some better friendsea"...she said. "Your friend is

a pretty small-caliber guy. A real

loser. He got eight

years on the state charge. Moving stolen property

across state lines is a federal crime of course,

and Justice hasn't decided if they will

prosecute."

It quickly became plain that at that moment in his

life, the CIA was his best career choice.

After finishing law school, Carmellini spent a

year in the covert operations section of the agency. Now

he was an associate of William Henry Chance,

who had been with the CIA ever since he left the army

after the Vietnam War. The cover was impecca2oth

men were really practicing attorneys and CIA

operatives on the side.

Carmellini remembered the first tune he met

William Henry Chance. He was running a

ten-kilometer race hi Virginia one weekend

when Chance came galloping up beside him, barely

sweating, and suggested they have lunch afterward.

Chance mentioned a name, Carmellini's boss at the

agency. "He said you were a pretty good

runnerea"...Chance said, then began lengthening his stride.

Tommy Carmellini managed to stay with Chance

all the way to the tape but it was a hell of a workout

Chance didn't work at running; he loped

along, all lean meat, bone, and sinew, a

natural long-distance runner. Carmellini, on the

other hand, was built more like a running back or

middle linebacker.

About half of Carmellini's time was spent on

agency matters, half on the firm's business.

He was a better covert warrior than he was a

lawyer, so he had to work hard to keep up with the bright

young associates who had not the slightest idea that

Carmellini or Chance were also employed by the CIA.

Sitting in a telephone company van hi the

middle of Havana listening to intercepted conversations,

Tommy Carmellini wondered if he should have told

the CIA to stick it. He would probably be getting

out of prison about now, free and clear.

And broke, of course. His friend had fenced the

diamond

and spent all the money, never intending to give

Carmellini his share.

On the table were a set of photos the technicians

had taken of the University of Havana science

building. They had had the place under surveillance

for the last two days.

Carmellini looked at the photos critically, as

if he were going to burgle the joint. There were

guards at every entrance, some electronic alarms:

getting in would take some doing.

After a while Chance handed the headphones to a

technician. He sat looking at Carmellini with a

frown on his face.

"I think Vargas plans to kill Fidelea"...Chance

said finally.

"When?"

"Soon. Very soon. Today or tomorrow, I would

imagine."

"And then?"'

"Your guess is as good as mine."

The men left alive aboard

Angel del Mar

were unable to get the engine restarted, so it drifted

helplessly with the wind and swell. Ocho took his

turn in the tiny, cramped engine compartment. Something

down inside the engine was broken, perhaps the

crankshaft. Rotating the propeller shaft by hand

made a clunky noise; at a certain point in the

shaft's rotation it became extremely difficult

to turn. Admitting finally that repairing the motor was

hopeless, Ocho backed out of the small compartment. His

place was taken by someone else who wanted

to satisfy himself personally that the engine was

indeed beyond repair.

After a while they all gave up and shut the door.

Without the engine they had to work the bilge pump

manually. Fifteen minutes of intense effort

cleared the bilges of water. With daylight coming through the

hatch one could just see the water seeping in between the

planks where the sea had pounded the caulking loose.

It took about fifteen minutes for the bilges

to fill, then they had to be

pumped again. A quarter hour of work, a quarter hour

of rest.

"If we can just keep pumpingea"...the old fisherman

said, "we stay afloat."

"If the water doesn't come in any

fasterea"...Ocho added. He was young and strong, so he

spent hours sitting here in the bilge working the pump,

watching the water come in.

Twenty-six people remained alive. The captain's

body was still hi the wheelhouse, where he had fallen.

No one wanted to take responsibility for moving

bun.

After a morning working the bilge pump, Ocho

Sedano stood braced against the wheelhouse and, shading

his eyes, looked carefully in all directions. The

view was the same as it was yesterday,

swells that ran off to the horizon, and above it all

a sky crowded with puffy little clouds.

At least the sea had subsided somewhat. The wind

no longer tore whitecaps off the waves. The

breeze seemed steady, maybe eight or ten

knots out of the southwest.

One suspected the boat was drifting northeast,

riding the Gulf Stream. The nearest land in that

direction was the Bahamas.

The United States was north, or perhaps

northwest-now. A whole continent was just over the

horizon, with people, cities, restaurants, farms,

mountains, rivers... if only they could get there.

Well, someone would see this boat drifting before

too long. Someone in a plane or fishing boat,

perhaps an American coast guard cutter or navy

ship looking for drug smugglers. They would see the

Angel del Mar

drifting helplessly, give the people stranded on her

water and food, then take them to Guantinamo Bay

and make them walk through the gate back to Cuba.

Or maybe they would be taken to hospitals in

America.

Already some of these people needed hospitals. They had

vomited too much, been without water for too

long. They had become dehydrated, then-

electrolytes dangerously out of balance, and if

left unattended would die. Just

like the people swept over me side last night.

Of course, knowing all this, there was absolutely

nothing Ocho Sedano could do. He too felt the

ravages of thirst, felt the aching of the empty knot

hi his stomach. Fortunately he had not been

seasick, had not retched his guts out until he had

only the dry heaves like so many of these others lying

helpless in the sun.

The wheelhouse cast a little shade, so he dragged

several people in out of the sun. Maybe that would help a

little.

The sea seemed to keep the boat broadside to it,

so the shade didn't move around too much, which was a

blessing.

There wasn't room in die shade for everyone.

"The sailea"...sd the fisherman. "There is an old

piece of canvas around the boom. Let's see if

we can get it up."

They worked with the canvas in the afternoon sun for over an

hour, trying to rig it as a sail. It wasn't

really a sail, but an awning. Finally die

fisherman said maybe it was best used

to catch rain and protect people from die sun, so they

rigged it across die boom and tied it there.

Ocho dragged as many people under it as he could, then lay

exhausted on die board deck in die shade, his

tongue a swollen, heavy, rough thing in his dry

mouth.

Sweating. He was going to have to stop sweating like this, stop

wasting his bodily fluids. Stop this exertion.

Nearby a child cried. She would stop soon, he

thought, too tiiirsty to waste energy crying.

He sat up, looked for Dora. She was sitting in

die shade with her back against die wheelhouse. Her

father, Diego Coca, lay on die deck beside her,

his head in her lap. She looked at Ocho, then

averted her gaze.

"What should I have done"..."...he asked.

She couldn't have heard him.

He got up, went over to where she was. "What should

I have done?"

She said nothing, merely lowered her head. She was

stroking her father's hair. His eyes were closed, he

seemed oblivious to bis surroundings and die

corkscrewing motion

of the drifting boat. His body moved slackly as the

boat rose and fell.

Ocho Sedano went into the wheelhouse. Above the

captain's swollen corpse the helm wheel kicked

back and forth in rhythm to the pounding of the sea.

Ocho held his breath, turned the body over, went

through the pockets. A few pesos, a letter, a

home-made pocketknife, a worn, rusty

bolt, a stub of a pencil, a button ... not much

to show for a lifetime of work.

Already the body was swelling in the heat. The face was

dark and mottled.

He dragged the captain's stiff body from the

wheelhouse, got it to the rail and hooked one of the

arms across the railing. Then he lifted the feet.

The dead man was very heavy. -

Grunting, working alone since none of his audience

lifted a hand to help, Ocho heaved the weight up

onto the rail and balanced it there as the boat

rolled. Timing the roll, he released the body and

it fell into the sea.

The corpse floated beside the boat face up. The

lifeless eyes seemed to follow Ocho.

He tore himself away, finally, and watched the top

of the mast make circles against the gray-white

clouds and patchy blue.

When he looked again at the water the

captain's corpse was still there, still face up. The

sea water made a fan of his long hair, swirled

and

back and forth as if it were waving in a breeze.

Water flowed into and out of his open mouth as the corpse

bobbed up and down.

The long nights, the sun, heat, and exhaustion

caught up with Ocho Sedano and he could no longer

remain upright. He lowered himself to the deck, wedged his

body against the railing, and slept.

"That freighter that left Gitmo last week, the one

carrying the warheads?"

"I rememberea"...Toad Tarkington said. "The

Colon,

or something like that."

"Nuestra Senora de Coldn.

She never made it to Norfolk."

"What"..."...Toad stared at the admiral, who was

holding the classified message.

"She never arrived. Atlantic Fleet HQ is

looking for her rightJiow."

Toad took the message, scanned it, then handed it

back.

"We sent a destroyer with that shipea"...the admiral

said. "Call the captain, find out everything

you can. I want to know when he last saw that ship and

where she was."

In minutes Toad had the CO on the secure

voice circuit "We went up through the Windward and

Mayaguanan passagesea"...Toad was told. "They

were creeping along at three Joiots, but they got

their engineering plant rolling again and worked up

to twelve knots, so we left her a hundred

miles north of San Salvador, heading

north."...The captain gave the date and time.

"The

Coldn

never arrived in Norfolkea"...Toad said.

"I'll be damned! Lost with all hands?"

"I doubt that very muchea"...Toad replied.

Toad got on the encrypted voice circuit,

telling the computer technicians in Maryland what he

wanted. Soon the computers began chattering.

Rivers of digital, encrypted data from the

National Security Agency's mainframe computers

at Fort Meade, Maryland, were bounced off a

satellite and routed into the computers aboard

United States.

On the screens before him he began seeing

pictures, radar images from

satellites in space looking down onto the earth.

The blips that were the

Coldn

and her escorting destroyer were easily picked out as

they left Guantdnamo Bay and made their way

through the Windward Passage.

The screens advanced hour by hour. The three-knot

speed of advance made the blips look almost

stationary, so Toad flipped quickly through the screens,

then had to wait while the data feed caught up.

Jake Grafton joined him, and they looked at the

screens together.

The two blips crawled north, past

Mayaguana, past San Salvador, then they

sped up. The destroyer turning back was obvious.

As Jake and Toad watched, the blip that was the

Colon

turned southeast, back toward the Bahamas

archipelago. Then the blip merged into a sea of

white return.

"Now what?"

"It's rainea"...Jake said. "There was a storm. The

blip is buried somewhere in that rain return. Call

NSA. See if they can screen out the rain

effect."

He was right; the rain did obscure the blip. But

NSA could not separate the ship's return from that

caused by rain.

"See if they can do a probability study, show us

the most probable location of the

Coldn

in the middle of that mess."

The computing the admiral requested took hours, and the

results were inconclusive. As the intensity of the

showers increased and decreased, the probable location of the

ship expanded and contracted like a living circle.

Jake and Toad drank coffee and ate sandwiches

as they waited and watched the computer presentations.

Jake wandered around the compartment looking at maps between

glances at the computer screen and conversations over

another encrypted circuit with the brass in the

Pentagon. The White House was in the loop nowthe

president wanted to know how in hell a shipload of

chemical and biological warheads could disappear.

"What do you think happened, Admiral"..."...Toad

asked.

'Too many possibilities."

"Do the people in Washington blame you for not having the

Coldn

escorted all the way to Norfolk?"

"Of course. The national security adviser wants

to know , why the destroyer left the

Colon."

Toad bristled. "You weren't told to escort that

ship, you

were told to guard the base. Escorting that ship out of the

area wasn't your responsibility."""

"Somebody is going to second-guess every decision

I makeea"...Jake Grafton said, "all of them.

They're doing that right now. That comes with the stars and the

job."

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing."

"I'll be out on the golf course soon enough, and the

only person who will second-guess me then will be

my wife."

Despite the best efforts of the wizards in Maryland

and aboard ship, the location of the

Colon

under the rain of the cold front could not be established.

Jake gave up, finally.

'Tell them to move forward in time. Let's see where

the ship was after the storm."

But when the rain ceased, the computer could not identify the

Colon

from the other ship returns. There were

thirty-two medium- to large-sized vessels in the

vicinity of the Bahamas alone.

Toad stayed on the encrypted circuit to the NSA

wizards. Finally he hung up the handset and turned

to the admiral.

"They can assign track numbers to each blip,

watch where they go, and by process of elimination come up

with the most likely blips. There is a lot of

computing Involved. The process will take hours,

maybe a day of* two."

Jake Grafton picked up the flight schedule,

took a look, then handed it to Toad. "Put the

air wing up in a surface search pattern.

Let's see what we"...c find out there now."

Toad turned to the chart on the bulkhead. "Where do

you want them to look?"

"From the north coast of Cuba north into the

Bahamas. Look along the coast of

Hispaniola, all the way to Puerto Rico. Do

the Turks and Caicos. Have the crews

photograph every ship they see. Have NSA

establish current ship tracks, then match up

what the air crews see with what the satellite

sees. Then let's run the current plot

backward."

"Someone got a lucky break with the rain

stormea"...Toad

commented. "Maybe they were playing for the break, maybe

it just happened."

"Send a top secret message to the Gitmo

base commander. Find out everything they know about die

crew of that ship."

Jake Grafton tapped the chart. "The

president gave everyone in uniform their marching

orders. Find that ship."

Maximo Sedano flashed his diplomatic

passport at the immigration officer in the Madrid

airport and was waved through after a perfunctory

glance. His suitcase was checked through to Zurich, and of

course customs passed his attach@l case without

inspection. Traveling as a diplomat certainly

had its advantagesairport security did not

even x-ray a diplomat's carry-on bags.

- The Cuban minister of finance wandered the airport

terminal luxuriating in the ambiance of Europe.

The shops were full of delicacies, books,

tobacco, clothes, liquor, the women were well

turned out, the sights and smells were of civilization

and prosperity and good living.

In spite of himself, Maximo Sedano

sighed deeply. Ah, yes...

Spain or one of the Spanish islands would be his

choice for retirement. With Europe at his feet,

what more could a man want? And retirement seemed

to Maximo to be almost within reach.

What was the phrase? "Fire in the belly"? Some

Yanqui politician said to win office one must have

fire in the belly.

After a morning of thinking about it, Maximo concluded

he didn't have the fire. After Fidel died,

Fidel's brother, Raiil or Maximo's

brother Hector, or Alejo Vargas, or

anyone else who could kill his rivals could rule

CubaMaximo had given up trying for that prize.

He'd take the money.

And all the things money can buy: villas, beautiful

women, yachts, gourmet food, fine wine,

beautiful women

...

Someone else could stand in the Plaza de la

Revolution in Havana and revel in the cheers of the

crowd.

He filed aboard the plane to Zurich and settled

cheerfully into his seat. He smiled at the flight

attendant and beamed at the man across the

aisle.

Life is good, Maximo told himself, and

unconsciously fingered his breast pocket, where the

cards were that contained Fidel's signature and

thumbprints.

Why go back?

Fifty-three or comfour million American

dollars was more than enough. To hell with the gold!

As the jet accelerated down the runway, Maximo

told himself that the only smart thing was to take the money

and retire. Now was the hour. Reel in the fish on

the line don't let it off the hook to cast for

another.

He could transfer the money, spend three or four

days shuffling it around, then leave Zurich on the

Argentine passport as Eduardo Jos6 Lopez.

Maximo Sedano would cease to exist.

Off to Ibiza, buy a small cottage

overlooking the sea, find a willing woman, not too

young, not too old...

Yes.

He would do it.

The sudden death of Fidel Castro caught Alejo

Vargas off guard. The dictator's death was

supposed to be days, even weeks, away.

Unfortunately Vargas's political position was

precarious, to say the least. He really could have used

Fidel's endorsement, however obtained. At least

now no one would get it.

Although he had lived bis whole life in his

brother's shadow, Raiil Castro nominally held

the reins of government. Alejo Vargas thought that

without Fidel, Raul was completely out on a

limb, without a political constituency of his own.

While he tried to analyze the moves on the

board, Vargas had Colonel Santana lock

Mercedes in a bedroom, seal

the presidential palace, and put a security

man on the telephone switchboard. He didn't

want the news of Fidel's death to get out before he

was ready.

Vargas left Santana in charge of the palace and

took his limo back to the ministry. Of course he

refrained from using the telephone in his limo to issue

orders. The Americans listened to every radio

transmission on telephone frequencies and would

soon know as much about his business as he did. He

sat silently as the limo carried him through the afternoon

traffic to the ministry.

There he called his most trusted

lieutenants to his office and issued orders.

Bring Admiral Delgado and General Alba to this

office immediately. Find and arrest Hector Sedano.

Alejo Vargas stood at the window looking at

Mono Castle and the sea beyond. Far out from shore he

could just make out the deep blue of the Gulf Stream,

which appeared as a thin blue line just under the horizon.

An overcast layer was moving in from the southeast and a

breeze was picking up.

A historic day ... Fidel Castro, the towering

giant of Cuban history was dead. The end of an

era, Vargas thought, and the beginning of a new one, one

he would dominate.

Despite the timing surprise, Vargas really had

no choice: he was going to have to go forward with his plan.

He had concluded a month or so ago that the only

course open to him upon the death of Castro was to create

a situation that would induce the Cuban people to rally around

him. He would need boldness and a fierce resolve

if he were to have a chance of success, but he was just the

man to risk everything on one roll of the dice. After

he personally loaded them.

Colonel Santana brought an American

artillery shell to Havana yesterday, one removed

Nuestra Senora de Coldn.

The thing was in the basement of the ministry now, under armed

guard. The Cuban leadership had known for years that

the Americans had CBW weapons stored at

Guantanamo. Now the Americans were removing the

things, but too late! Thanks to El Gato,

Vargas had one he could show the world. Soon he

hoped to have a great many more.

Alejo Vargas took a deep breath, stretched

mightily, helped himself to a'cigar. He lit it,

inhaled the smoke, and blew it out through his nose. Then

he laughed.

"I want a little house with a garden. Every day food

to eat. Children. A doctor to make them well when they

get sick. A man who loves me. Is that so

much?"

Dora's mouth was so dry she didn't

enunciate her words clearly, but Ocho knew what

she meant. They lay head to head under the awning in the

shade as the

Angel del Mar

pitched and rolled endlessly in the long sea swells.

Surrounded by a universe of water they couldn't

drink, the twenty-six humans aboard the boat were

tortured by thirst and baked by the sun. Many

had bad sunburns now, raw places where the skin

had blistered and peeled off, leaving oozing sores.

The old fisherman dipped buckets of water from the

sea and poured salt water over the burns. He

gently poured sea water on the small children, who had

long ago ceased crying. Perhaps the water would be

absorbed by their dehydrated tissues. If not, it

would at least help keep them cool, ease their

suffering somewhat.

Near Dora a woman was repeating the Rosary,

over and over, mumbling it. Now and then another

woman joined in for a few minutes, then fell

silent until the spirit moved her again.

It seemed as if everyone left alive had lost

someone to the sea that first night. The cries and grief

were almost more than people could bear when they realized who had

been lost, and that they were gone forever. Mothers cried,

daughters were so distraught they shook, the hopelessness

hit everyone like a hammer. The mother of the captain, who

saw him dead, shot hi the back, could neither move

nor speak. As Dora talked, Ocho watched the

woman, who sat

now at the foot of the mainmast, holding on to it with one

hand and a daughter or daughter-in-law with the other.

Every now and then Ocho sat or stood and

searched the horizon. Nothing. Not a boat, not land,

not a ship. Nothing.

Oh, three airplanes had gone over, two jets

way up high making contrails and a twin-engine

plane perhaps two miles up mat had crossed the

sky straight as a string, without the slightest waver as

it passed within a half mile

of Angel del Mar,

rolling her guts out in die swells.

To see the airplanes, with their people riding inside,

safe, full of food and drink, on their way from

someplace to somewhere else, while we poor

creatures are trapped here on this miserable boat,

condemned to die slowly of thirst and exposure...

Surely the boat would be found soon... by somebody!

Anybody! How can the Americans not see us?

How?

Do they see us and not care?

Ocho was standing, watching for other ships and listening

to Dora talk of the house she wanted, with the flowers

by the door, when he realized that the dark place he

could see to the west was a rain squall.

"Rainea"...he whispered.

"Rain."

He shouted the word, pointed.

The squall was upon them before anyone could muster the

energy to do anything. The people stood with their mourns open

as raindrops pounded them and soaked their clothes and

ran off the awning and along the deck, to disappear into the

scuppers.

"The awning! Quickly. Make a container from the awning

to trap the water!"

Ocho untied one corner with fingers that were all

thumbs, the old fisherman did another comer, and they

held the corners up, trapping water.

They had a few gallons when the rain ceased

falling.

Several of the men tried to lean over, drink from the

awning.

"No. Children first."

Ocho managed to catch one man by the back of the neck

and throw him to the deck.

"Children first."

One by one the children were allowed to drink all they could

hold. Then the women.

Several of the men got a swallow or two each,

then the water was gone.

Ocho sat down, wiped the sweat and water from his

hair and sucked it from his fingers. The only water he

had gotten had been from holding his mourn

open.

Dora had drunk her fill. Now she lay on

the deck with her eyes closed.

Diego Coca had even gotten a swallow.

He looked about with venomous eyes, then lay down

beside his daughter.

"We must rig the awning so that it will catch water

if die rain comes againea"...Ocho said to the old

fisherman.

They worked at it, cut a hole in the low place

in the canvas and put a five-gallon bucket under

die hole.

If it will just rain again,

Ocho thought, studying the clouds.

Please God, hear our prayer.

"Why are you here, on this boat"..."...the old fisherman

asked Ocho, who stared at him in surprise.

"Why are you here"..."...the fisherman repeated. "You

aren't tike us."

Ocho looked around at his fellow sufferers, unable

to fathom the old man's meaning.

"These people are all losersea"...the old man said,

"including me. We came looking for something we will

never find. Why are you with us?"

"It's time for someone to relieve Lopez

on the pump. I will do it for a while, then you

relieve me, old man."

"We are going to die soon, I thinkea"...the old

man said.

Ocho hissed, "There are children listening. Watch your

mouth."

"When we can pump no more we will swim. Then we will

die. One by one people will drown, or sharks will come."

%

"Look for a shipea"...Ocho said harshly, and went below.

Sharks! The old windbag, scaring the children like that

Of course sharks were a possibility. Blood or

people thrashing about in the water would attract them, or so

he had always heard. Sharks would rip people apart, pull

them under.

He pumped for a bit over twenty minutes, then

took a break. The water came in fast. After

five minutes he began pumping again. Another

twenty-one minutes of vigorous effort was required

to empty the bilge.

The water was coming in faster than it did yesterday.

Pumping the handle manually seemed to require more

effort too, though he knew he just had less energy.

Pump, pump, pump, take a brief rest in the

stinky bilge, then pump again....

The more tired he grew the more hopeless he felt.

All of them were doomed. Dora, the baby growing within

her, the baby that he had put in her womb ...

It was his fault. If he had been man enough to say

no, to not surrender to lust, all these people would still be in

Cuba, they would have a future to look forward to, not

watery death. All the people who had been swept to their

death would still be alive.

Alive!

He had no idea of the horrible things he was setting

in motion when he opened her dress, felt the

ripeness of her body, felt the heat of her.

The guilt weighed on him, made it hard to breathe.

He must do what he could to save them all. That was the

only honorable choice open to him. Save as many as

possible and maybe God would forgive him.

Maybe then he could forgive himself....

And he shouldn't give up hope yet. As he worked

the pump handle he scolded himself for being so

negative, for not having faith in God, in His

plan for the twenty-six human beings still alive on

Angel del Mar.

Soon a ship would come. The sailors would see the

boat and rescue them. Give them cool, clean

water, all they

could drink; and food. Let each of them eat their

fill. Soon it would come. Any minute now.

He pumped and pumped, sweat burned his eyes and

dripped from his nose, though not so much as he sweated

yesterday. He was very dehydrated. The salt had

built up in his armpits, his groin, and it cut him.

With his free hand he scratched, which only made the

burning worse.

Any minute now a ship will come over the horizon.

Soon...

Maximo Sedano took a taxi from the Zurich

airport to an excellent hotel in the heart of the

financial district where he had stayed on six or

eight previous visits. The hotel was old,

solid, substantial, almost banklike, yet it was

not the primo hotel. This was the last time he stayed

here, he told himself. Eduardo Jos6 Lopez would

stay at the best hotel in town because by God he could

afford it. And because the staff over there had never seen

him as Maximo Sedano.

He would have- to make many adjustments, avoid

photographs, avoid places where prominent

Cubans might see him, like the heart of Madrid

or London or Paris. Of course, if Vargas

was assassinated in the turmoil following

Fidel's death, he could relax his vigilance

somewhat. Vargas was a bloodhound, a humorless

man with a profound capacity for revenge. Still, if

Vargas came out on top after the succession struggle

in Havana, he would have many things on bis mind, and a

missing ex-finance minister would of necessity be far

down on the list.

Maximo would take his chances. He was hi

Europe, the money was hi the banks just down the

street, the loud and clear call of destiny was ringing

hi bis ears.

He was sipping a drink and thinking about where he

might go for dinner when he heard a knock on the

door.

"Yes?"

"Delivery."

"I ordered nothing- There has been a

mistake."

"For the Honorable Maximo Sedano."

Curious, he opened the door.

The man standing in the hallway was European, with

thinning hair and bulging muscles and a chiseled chin.

And he was holding a pistol in his right hand, one

pointed precisely at Maximo's solar

plexus.

The man backed Maximo into the room and closed the

door.

"Your passport, please"..."...A German accent.

"I have little money. Take it and go."

"Sit."...He gestured toward a chair by the bed with his

pistol. Maximo obeyed, thankfully. His knees

were turning to jelly and he had a powerful urge

to urinate.

"Now the passport."

Maximo took the diplomatic passport from his

inside pocket and passed it 'acr. Taking care

to keep the pistol well away from Maximo and still

pointed at his middle, the man reached for the passport

with his left hand.

He glanced at the photo and name, grinned, and

tossed the passport on the bed. The man took a

seat.

"You look white as a sheet, man. Are you going

to pass out?"

He felt dizzy, light-headed. He put his hand

to his forehead, which felt clammy.

"Loosen your tieea"...the German ordered,

"unbutton your collar button, then put your head

between your knees."

Maximo obeyed.

"Don't breathe so fast. Get a grip on yourself.

If you aren't careful you'll hyperventilate and

pass out."

Maximo concentrated on breathing slowly. After a

few seconds he felt better. Finally he

straightened up. The pistol was nowhere in sight.

"Vargas said you were a jellyfish."...The German

shook his head sadly.

"Do you work for him"..."...He was shocked at the sound of his

own voice, the pitch of which was surprisingly high.

"I do errands from time to timeea"...the German replied.

"He pays well and the work is congenial."

"What do you want?"

"Vargas wanted me to remind you that you were sent to do

an errand. You are to transfer the money to the proper

accounts tomorrow and return to Cuba. If you do not, I

am to kill you."

The German smiled warmly. "I will do it too.

There is a side of my personality that I am not

proud of, that I do not like to admit, but it is only

fair that I should tell you the truth: I like to kill

people. I enjoy it. I don't just shoot them, bang,

bang, bang. I see how long I can keep them

alive, how much I can make them suffer. I own a

quiet little place, out of the way,

isolated. It is perfect for my needs."

The German's eyes narrowed speculatively.

"You seem a miserable specimen, but I like a

challenge. I think with a little prior planning I could

probably make you scream for at least forty-eight

hours before you died."

Maximo's heart was hammering in his ears, thudding

along like a race horse's hooves.

The German picked up the telephone, told the

operator he wished to place a call to Havana.

He gave her the number.

One minute passed, then, another.

"Rail here. For Vargas."

After a few seconds, Rail spoke again.

"Buenos diets, senor.

I have" given him your message."

The German listened for a few more seconds, then

passed the telephone to Maximo.

The Cuban minister of finance managed to make a

noise, and heard the voice of Alejo Vargas:

"The money must arrive tomorrow, Maximo. You understand?"

"Your thug has threatened me."

"I hope Senor Rail has made the situation

clear. It would be a tragedy for you to die because you did

not understand your duty."

The line went dead before Maximo could answer. He

sat with the instrument in his hand, trying to keep control of

his stomach. Rail gestured, so he handed the phone

to him.

The German listened to make sure the connection had

been severed, then placed the instrument back in its

cradle. He stood.

"I don't know what else to say. You understand the

situation. Your destiny is in your hands."

With that the German went to the door, opened it and

passed through, then pulled the door shut behind him

until it latched.

Maximo ran to the bathroom and vomited in the

commode.

William Henry Chance was lying on the bed in his

hotel room reading a magazine when he heard the

knock on the door. He opened it to find Tommy

Carmellini standing there.

"Hey, bossea"...Carmellini said. "Let's take

a walk."

"Give me a moment to put on my shoes."

Chance did so, pulled on a light sportscoat,

and locked the door behind him on the way out.

Neither man spoke as they rode the elevator

downstairs. Out on the sidewalk they

automatically checked for a tail. No one

obviously following, but that meant little. If the

Cubans had burned them as CIA, they could have

watchers hi every building, be filming every move, every

gesture, every movement of the lips.

So neither man said anything.

Carmellini directed then- steps toward one of the

larger casinos on the Malecon. Latin'music

engulfed them as they walked into the building. The

place reminded Chance of Atlantic City,

complete with crowds of gray-haired retirees

buying a good time, mostly Americans, Germans,

English, and Spaniards. No Cubans were

gambling, of course, just foreigners who had hard

currency to wager.

The only Cubans not behind the tables were

prostitutes,

young, gorgeous, and dressed in the latest European

fashions. At this hour of the evening the cigar smoke

was thick, the liquor flowing, and the laughter and music

loud.

The two men drifted around the casino, taking their

time, checking to see who was watching them, then finally

sifted out of the building through a side door. At the

basement loading dock a man was

inventorying supplies in a telephone repaur

van. Chance and Carmellini climbed in, the man

closed the door, and the van rolled.

"Vargas is having a powwow in his

officeea"...Carmellini reported. "It sounds as if

Castro is dead."

"Nobody lives foreverea"...Chance said lightly. "Not

even dictators."

"That isn't the half of it. They're talking about

biological weapons again."

"Bingoea"...Chance said, a touch of satisfaction

creeping into his voice.

"Yeah. Vargas says there is a warehouse full

of biological warheads at Gitmo."

It took a whole lot to surprise William

Henry Chance. He gaped.

"Not only thatea"...Carmellini continued, "he has one

of the things. He's going to show it to the Cuban people,

prove to the world what perfidious bastards the

Americans are."

"He's got an American CBW warhead?"

"You'll have to listen to the tape. Sounded to the

technician like the thing was stolen from a ship."

"Biological warheads at Guantanamo Bay?

That's gotta be wrong! Have these guys been

smoking something?"

"I think Vargas and his pals have gone off the deep

end. Either that or they plan to plant some

biological agents in Guantanamo after they

crash through the fence."

"Maybe they know we're listening to themea"...Chance said.

"Maybe this whole thing is a hoax."

"Could beea"...Tommy Carmellini agreed, but

to judge by his tone of voice, he didn't think

so.

Maximo Sedano was committed. He couldn't

transfer the money to Cuban government accounts in

Havana because the transfer cards contained the wrong

account numbers. Changing the numbers was out of the question:

any alteration to the cards would be instantly spotted and

cause the Swiss bankers to suspect forgery.

Maximo carefully arranged the combination locks on

his attache case and opened it At the bottom was a

pistol, a very nice little Walther in 7.35 mm. The

magazine was full, but there was no round in the chamber.

Maximo chambered a round and engaged the safety.

He put the pistol in his right-hand trouser pocket and

looked at himself in the mirror.

He put his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers

around the butt of the weapon.

He had to go to the banks tomorrow, act like a bureaucrat

shuffling money for his government while they shoveled

$53 million plus interest into his personal

accounts. Well, if he could kill the German and

get away with it, he sure as hell could keep his

cool while the Swiss bankers made him rich.

Could he kill Rail?

How badly did he want to be rich?

He stood at the window looking at the Limmat

River a block from the hotel, and beyond it, the vast

expanse of Lake Zurich. Beyond the lake

half-hidden in the hare were the peaks of the Alps, still

white with last winter's snow.

He certainly didn't want to go back to Cuba.

A drink of scotch whiskey from the minibar helped

settle his nerves.

An hour later he left the hotel. He turned

left, crossed the Limmat River on the nearest

bridge, and headed for the main thoroughfare. Perhaps an

hour of daylight left, but not more. He didn't

look around him, sure that Rail was somewhere near.

He took his time strolling along, pretending to enjoy

the early summer day and the ebb and flow of the

crowd, many of whom were young people on school holiday.

Finally he turned into an old

cobblestoned street too narrow for vehicles and

walked up it toward the hill which loomed above the

downtown area. Medieval buildings rose up on

either side and seemed to lean in, making the street

seem even narrower and more confining than it really was as the

daylight faded from the sky.

He found the restaurant he remembered and went

inside. Yes, it was as he recalled, with the tables and

chairs just so, the kitchen beyond, and past the kitchen, the

rest room. One with an old tank mounted high in the

wall with a pull chain.

How long had it been?

Two years, at least.

The waiter was new, didn't seem to recognize

him. Not that he should, but it might be inconvenient if

he should later recall seeing Sedano here this evening.

Maximo sat with his back against the wall, so that

he could see both the front doorway and the door to the

kitchen.

He ordered an Italian red wine, something

robust, while he studied the menu.

The truth was Maximo was so nervous that he

didn't think he could eat anything. The automatic

felt heavy on his thigh, its weight an ominous

presence that he couldn't ignore.

He tried to slow his breathing, make his pulse

stop racing.

He used his handkerchief to wipe his hands, his

face. He was used to the heat of Cuba; he should not

be perspiring like this!

Get a grip, Maximoif you cannot control yourself you

will soon be dead. Or a subject for that pervert's

experiments.

He wondered if Rail had told the truth about

torturing people.

lust thinking about that subject and the way the bastard

told him about itwith obvious relishmake his forehead

break out in a sweat. He swabbed with the handkerchief

again.

There were two couples and another single man in the

restaurant. Only one waiter shuttled back and

forth through the kitchen dbor.

Maximo moved to a different seat at the same table

so mat he could see through the kitchen door. Yes,

now when the waiter came through the door he could see

most of the length of the narrow kitchen. The chef was moving

back and forth, working on something in a pot, checking the

oven, taking things from a refrigerator....

"More wine?"

The waiter was there, holding the bottle.

"If you please."

As the waiter poured, Maximo murmured, "Have you

a rest room?"

"Yes, of course. Through the kitchen, on the left in

back."

"I do not wish to disturb the chef."

"Do not stand on ceremony, sir."

He waited, sipping the wine, trying not to stare through the

kitchen door. When the waiter returned he

ordered, something, the first thing he saw on the menu.

One of the two couples left, the second finished

their dinner and ordered coffee, the other man's meal

came at about the same time as Maximo's. .

He was just starting on the main course when the chef

came to the door, wiped his hands on a towel, and said

something to the waiter. Then he stepped outside into the'

narrow street and lit a cigarette. Night had

fallen.

Maximo got up and headed for the rest room.

As the kitchen door closed behind him, he looked for the

drawer or shelf that held the tools.

Quickly now ...

He opened one drawer... the wrong one.

Next drawer, forks, knives and spoons.

Next drawer...

yes!

He saw what he wanted, and quick as a thought reached,

palmed it, and strode for die rest room.

Ten minutes passed before he was ready for the dining

room again. The chef was back at his pots and pans.

He nodded as Maximo walked by.

Maximo resumed his seat, took his time, stirred

the food around on his plate but could eat nothing more.

He took a few more sips of wine, then ordered

coffee.

He was just reaching for the bill at the end of the meal when

Rail dropped into a seat at his table.

"I should have come in earlier, let you-buy me a

meal."

"Get out."

"Oh, don't be impolite. I wish to talk

to you awhile, to learn what you do for the Cuban

government."

"If you wish to know can I pay more than Vargas,

the answer is probably no. I am just a civil

servant. I suggest you take up the question with

Vargas."

Maximo took enough money from his wallet to pay for the

meal and a tip and dropped it into the tray on top of the

tab.

"I have a diplomatic passport. If you do not

leave I will have the waiter call the police."

"And have me arrested?"

"Something like mat"

Rail stared into Maximo's eyes. "I don't

think you appreciate your position."

"Perhaps. Have you properly evaluated yours?"

"A roaring mouse."...Rail pushed himself away from the

table, rose, and walked out the front door.

Maximo lingered, considering.

He left the restaurant a half hour later,

his right hand in his pocket around the butt of the pistol.

He looked neither right nor left, walked

purposely along the thoroughfares. He crossed the

Limmat River and walked toward the main train

station, which was well lit and still crowded with vacationing

students laden with backpacks. The students sat

around in circles, sharing cigarettes and talking

animatedly as they waited for their trains.

Maximo Sedano had no doubt that Rail was a

killer. He didn't know anything about the man

except what he had said, but he knew Alejo

Vargas. Vargas was just die man to order a

killing, or to do it himself. The list of Castro's

enemies who had disappeared through the years was

long enough to convince anyone that Vargas's enmity was not

good for one's health.

Maximo could hear footsteps behind him as he walked

through the train station.

A few students looked up at him, glanced behind

him "at whoever was following....

That had to be Rail.

What if it were someone else? What

if

Rail were not alone?

If there were two men, he was doomed. He

was'betting everything that there was only one man, one

man who thought him an incompetent coward.

Well, he was a coward. He had never had to live

by his wits, face physical danger. He was

frightened and no doubt it showed. He was perspiring

freely, his temples pounding, his breath coming in

short, quick gasps.

He entered a long, dingy hallway, following the

signs toward the men's room. The hall was empty.

He could hear the footsteps coining behind, a steady

pace, not rushed. The man behind was making no

attempt to walk softly. He was confident, in

complete control, die exact opposite of the way

Maximo Sedano felt.

He fought the urge to run, to look over his shoulder

to see precisely who was back there following him.

Time seemed to move ever so slowly. He was aware of

everything, the noise, the people, the dirty floor and

faded paint, and the smell of stale urine and feces

wafting through the door of the men's room as he entered.

No one in the room. The stalls, empty.

Maximo walked to the back wall, turned, and

faced die

door. He kept his hand in bis pocket. He

grasped the butt of the pistol tightly, his finger

wrapped around the trigger.

Rail walked into die room, stopped facing him.

"Well, well. We meet again."

Maximo said nothing. He swallowed three or

four times.

"Are you going somewhere on the train? Am I

delaying your departure?"'

Maximo bit bis tongue.

"What do you have in your pocket, little man?"

He tilted the barrel of the pistol up, so mat it

made a bulge hi bis trousers.

Rail grinned. The naked bulb on the ceiling

put the lower half of his face hi shadow and made his

grin look like a death's-head grimace.

The German reached into his jacket and pulled out

his pistol. He leveled it at Maximo.

"If you are going to shoot me, little man, go ahead

and do it."

Sweat stung Maximo's eyes. He shook his

head to clear the sweat.

Rail advanced several paces, moving slowly.

"Take your hand out of your pocket."

Now the German leveled his pistol. Pointed it

right at Maximo's face. "I will shoot you with great

pleasure unless you do as I say."

"Everyone will hearea"...Maximo squeaked, and withdrew

his hand from his pocket. Automatically he raised

both hands to shoulder height.

Rail kept advancing. When he passed under the

lightbulb his eye sockets became dark shadows and

Maximo couldn't see where he was looking.

Rail came up to him, slapped bun with his left

hand, then felt Maximo's right trouser pocket.

At this distance Maximo could see Rail's eyes.

His hands were together above his head.

"A gunff"...the German said with a hint of surprise in

his voice.

He reached for it, put his left hand into Maximo's

pocket to draw it out.

As he did so he glanced downward.

With his right hand Maximo pulled the handle of the ice

pick loose from the strap of his wristwatch and drew

it out of his sleeve. With one smooth, quick, savage

swinging motion he jabbed the pick into the side Of

Rail's head clear up to the handle.

Rail collapsed on the floor. Maximo kept

his grip on the handle of the ice pick", so the shiny

round blade slipped out of the tiny wound, which was about an

inch above Rail's left ear.

Maximo bent down, retrieved his pistol.

Rail's pistol was still in his hand, held loosely

by his flaccid ringers.

There was almost no blood on the side of Rail's

head.

Rail tried to focus his eyes. His body

straightened somewhat; one hand tightened on the pistol

in an uncontrolled reflex, then relaxed.

The German groaned. Muscle spasms racked his

body.

Maximo took a deep breath and exhaled

explosively. He wiped at the perspiration

dripping from his face. His shirt was a sodden mess.

Squaring his shoulders, he walked out of the men's room

without another glance at the man sprawled

on the floor. As he walked down the hallway

toward the main waiting room he passed two male

students carrying backpacks, but he purposefully

avoided eye contact and they didn't seem to pay

him any attention.

He walked at a steady, sedate pace through the

terminal and out into the night.

William Henry Chance sat in the back of the

van listening to the tape of Vargas's conversation with his

generals. Normally the fidelity of this system was

acceptable. Every now and then a word or phrase was

garbled or inaudible, the same drawback that affected

every listening technology. People mumbled or talked at

the same time or turned their heads the wrong way or

talked while smoking. Still, this evening he was only

catching occasional words.

Chance strained his ears. Phrases, occasionally a

plain word, lots of garbled noise...

"Is mis the best we can do?"

"The sky was overcast, the window was in shadow with the

evening coming on."

"What about the laser?"

If the crystals were illuminated with a laser beam

in the nonvisible portion of the spectrum, the

vibrations could be read with the large

magnification spotting scope at the usual distance.

The problem was getting the laser close enough to the

crystals. Maximum range for the laser was less

man one hundred meters, so the van with the laser had

to be parked literally in front of the building.

"We didn't want to take me risk without your

permission."

Ah, yes, risk. This equipment had been brought

into Cuba by boat. The four techniciansof

Mexican or Cuban descenthad arrived the same

Way.

Miguelito was from south Texas, the son of

migrant laborers. He didn't learn English

until he was in his late

teens. He had recorded the conversations, listened to the

audio as the computer processed it "What did you

think, Miguelito"..."...Chance asked. Chance's

Spanish was excellent, the result of months of

intense training, but he would never have a native

speaker's ear for the language.

Miguelito took his time answering. "It is

difficult to say. I hear phrases, pieces of

sentences, stray words... and my mind puts it all

together into something mat may not have been mere when they said

it. You understand?"

Chance nodded.

"What I hear is a conversation about biological

weapons in Guantanamo Bay."

"You mean using biological weapons against

Guantdnamo Bay?"

"That is possible. But my impression was that the

weapons were already mere."

"Castro. Did they talk about Castro?"

"His name was mentioned. It is distinctive. I mink

I heard it"

"Is he still alive?"

"I do not know."...Miguelito looked apologetic.

"Biological weapons inside the U.s.

faculty is impossible. They must be intending to use

them against the people mere."

Miguelito said nothing.

"I'd better listenea"...Chance said.

"I will play for you the best partea"...Miguelito said.

"Give me a few moments."...He played with the

equipment. After about a minute he announced he was

ready with a nod of his head. Chance and Carmellini

donned headsets.

Noise. They heard noise, occasionally garbled

voices, but mostly computer-generated noise as the

machine tried without success to make sense

of the nickering light coming through the high-magnification

spotting scope. Every now and then a word or two hi

Spanish. "Guantanamo... attack..."...Once

Chance was sure he heard the word

"biological,"" but even then, he wasn't

certain.

Finally he removed his headset.

Miguelito did likewise.

"Perhaps they are talking about possible targets when

and ifea"...Carmellini suggested. "After all, they can

spray this stuff into the air from a truck upwind and

kill everyone on the base."

Chance grimaced. What he had here was

absolutely nothing. He was going to need something more

definite before he started talking to Washington via the

satellite.

"They did a lot of talking about political

matters, people and districts, whom they supported and so

onea"...Miguelito said, "It is not much better than

what you have just heard they talked of this before the sun went

downbut I got the impression that Vargas wanted

Delgado and Alba to abandon any commitments they

had to Raul Castro or the Sedanos and throw in with

him."

"Hmmmea"...sd William Henry Chance. He

tried to focus on Miguelito's comments and couldn't

Biological weapons were on his mind.

He recalled Vargas's face, remembered how

he had looked as Chance had sat there discussing a

CubanAmerican cigarette company. The strong,

fleshy face had been a mask, revealing nothing of

its owner's thoughts. That poker face... that was his

dominant impression of Vargas.

The man certainly had a reputation: he was

ruthless efficiency incarnate, a thug who smashed

heads and sliced throats and got answers from people who

didn't want to talk. Every dictatorship needed a

few sociopaths-in high places. He was also

subtle and smooth when that was required. Nor had

he yet surrendered to his appetites, surrendered

to the absolute corruption that absolute power

inevitably causes. Not yet, anyway.

Yes, Alejo Vargas was a damned dangerous

man, one who apparently possessed the brains and

managerial skills necessary to produce biological

weapons and the brutality to use them.

El Gato may have shipped the Cubans material

that they could use to culture bacteria or viruses,

but as yet there was no hard evidence that the

Cubans had done so.

That tantalizing word, "biological."...Why would the

interior minister and the head of the Cuban Army and

Navy use that word if they weren't talking about

weapons? Sure as hell they weren't talking about

barracks sanitation or the condition of the mess

halls.

If there was a biological weapons program,

Chance told himself, the evidence would be inside the

ministry, the headquarters of the secret police.

There must be paper, records, orders, letterssomething!

No one could run a serious project like that without

paper, not even Vargas.

The evidence

is

inside that building,

he told himself.

After Fidel died of poison she had handed bun,

Mercedes was locked in her bedroom by Vargas and

Santana. Which was just as well.

She pulled a blanket over herself and curled up

on the bed hi the fetal position. The silence and

afternoon gloom were comforting.

Amazingly, no tears came. Fidel had been

dying for months, she was relieved that he had

finally come to the end of the journey, the end of the pain.

hi the stillness she listened to the sound of her breathing,

the sound of her heart pumping blood through her ears,

listened to an insect buzzing somewhere, listened to the

distant muted thump of footfalls and doors

closing, people engaged in the endless business of living.

She saw a gecko, high on the wall, quite motionless

except for his sides, which moved hi and out, just enough to be

seen hi the dun light coming in through the window drapes.

He seemed to be watching her. More likely he was

waiting for a fly, as he did somewhere every day, as his

ancestors had done since the dawn of time, as his

progeny would do until the sun flamed up and burned

the earth to a cinder. Then, they say, the sun would

burn out altogether

and the earth, if it still existed, would wander the universe

forever, a cold, lifeless rock, spinning aimlessly.

Until then geckos clung to walls and God

provided flies. Amazing how that worked.

She wondered about Hector, wondered if he would

be found and arrested, or murdered and shoveled into an

anonymous grave. God knows she had done everything

possible to warn him. Perhaps the man didn't want

to be warned: perhaps he knew the task before him was

impossible. Perhaps he really believed all

that Jesuit bullshit and hi truth didn't care

if he lived or died. Most likely that was it.

The truth was that the more you knew of life, of the

compromises one must make to get from day to day, the more

you realized the futility of it all. None of it

meant anything.

Man lived, man died, governments rose and

fell, justice was done or denied, venality was

crushed or triumphant; in the long run none of it

mattered a damn. The world spun on around the sun,

life continued to be lived....

When we perish from human memories we are no

more. We are well and truly gone, as if we had

never been.

She threw aside the cover and sat up in bed,

hugging her knees. She thought again of Fidel, and

finally let him go. She-then had only the twilight,

the room falling into darkness.

Toad Tarkington was waiting for Jake

Grafton beside the V-22 Osprey on the flight

deck of

United States.

The Osprey was a unique airplane, wim a

turbo-prop engine mounted on the end of each wing.

Just now the pilot had the engines tilted

straight up so that the 38-foot props on each

engine would function as helicopter rotor blades.

The machine could lift off vertically like a

heticopter or make a short, running takeoff.

Once airborne the pilot would gradually

transition to forward flight by tilting the engines down

into a horizontal position. Then the giant props

would function as conventional propellers, though

very large ones. The machine could also land vertically or

run on to a short landing area. A cross between a

large twin-rotor helicopter and a turbo-prop

transport, the extraordinarily versatile

Osprey had enormous lifting ability and

250-knot cruise speed, capabilities

exceeding those of any conventional helicopter.

Jake Grafton stood looking at, the plane

for a few seconds as it sat on the flight deck.

With its engines mounted on the very ends of its wingsa

position dictated by the size of the rotor bladesthe

machine could not stay airborne if one of the rotor

transmissions failed. It could fly on one engine,

however, if the drive shaft Unking the good engine to the

transmission of the distant rotor blade remained

intact.

The Osprey's extremely complicated

systems were made even more so by the requirement that the

wings and rotors fold into a tight package so that the

plane could be stored aboard ship. The transitions

between hovering and wingborne flight were only possible

because computers assisted the pilots in flying the

plane. Complex controls, complex systemsJake

thought the machine a flying tribute to the ingenuity of the

human species.

The evening looked gorgeous. The sky was clearing,

visibility decent. The late afternoon sun shone on

a breezy, tumbling sea. Jake took a deep

bream and climbed into the plane.

He put on a regular headset so that he could

talk to the flight crew.

""Lo, Admiral."

"Hello, Rita. How are you?"

"Ready to rock and roll, sir. Let me know when

you're strapped in."

"I'm ready."...Jake settled back and watched

Toad and the crewman strap in.

Lightly loaded, the Osprey almost leaped from the

flight deck into the stiff sea wind, which was coming

straight down the deck. Rita wasted no time

rotating the engines

forward to a horizontal position; the

craft accelerated quickly as the giant rotors

became propellers and the wings took the craft's

weight.

An hour later Rita Moravia landed the

Osprey vertically on a pier at Guantanamo

between two light poles. The sun was down by then and the

area was lit by flood lights.

A marine lieutenant colonel stood waiting.

He had the usual close-cropped hair, a deep

tan, the requisite square jaw, and he looked as

if he spent several hours a day lifting weights.

As they walked toward him Toad muttered, just

loud enough for Jake to hear, "Another refugee from the

Mr. Universe contest. If you can't make it in

bodybuilding, mere's always the marines."

"Can it, Toad."

The lieutenant colonel saluted smartly.

"I am deploying a company around the warehouse,

Admiral. We're taking up positions now."

"Excellentea"...Jake Grafton said. "I

brought an aerial photo mat was taken this

afternoon"...Toad took it from a folder and passed it

over"...if you would show me where you are placing your people?""

"Yes, sir."...Lieutenant Colonel

Eckhardt, the landing team commander, used the

photo and a finger to show where he would put his company.

He finished with the comment, "My plan is to channel

any intruders into these two open areas formed by these

streets, then kill them there."

"What are your alternatives?"

They discussed them, and the fact that Eckhardt

planned to divide one platoon between several empty

warehouses and use them as reserves. "I think this will

be a very realistic exercise, sirea"...the colonel

finished. "1 have even had ammunition issued to the

men, although of course they have been instructed to keep

their weapons empty."

"Colonel Eckhardt, this is not an

exercise."

"Sir?"

"That warehouse, warehouse nine, contains CBW

warheads. They are being loaded aboard this freighter

and die one that left the other day for transport

back to die states, where they are supposed to be

destroyed. The first ship that left carrying the damned

things has disappeared. We're hunting for it now. I

don't know just what in hell is going on, so I'm

putting your outfit here just in case."

"What is the threat, sir?"

"I don't know."

Jake could see Eckhardt was working hard to keep his

face under control.

"If the Cubans or anybody else comes over,

under, around, or through the perimeter fence, start

shooting."

"Yes, sirea"...Eckhardt said.

"Have your people load their weapons, Colonel. They will

defend themselves and this building. No warning

shotsshoot to kill."

"If we are assaulted, sir, how much warning would

you expect us to have?"

"I don't know. Maybe days, maybe hours,

maybe no warning at all."

"The more warning I have, sir, the fewer lives I am

likely to lose."

"I will pass that on to Washington, Colonel. When

I know something is up, you'll hear about it seconds

later. That's the best I can do."

"Yes, sir."

"Just so we're on the same sheet of music,

Colonel, I want that warehouse defended until

you are relieved or the very last marine is dead."

Eckhardt said nothing this time. Toad Tarkington's

grim expression softened. Eckhardt could have said

something like, "Marines don't surrenderea"...or

some other bullshit, but he didn't. Toad was

taking a liking to the lieutenant colonel.

"Anything you need from meea"...Jake Grafton

continued, "just ask. The battle group and the base

commander will

His

supply you to the extent of our resources. The

cruiser will provide artillery supportI want

you to interface with the cruiser people in the next hour or

two, make sure you're ready to communicate and

shoot."

"Yes, sir."

"Which brings up a point: I see that your people are

building bunkers from sandbags."

"Yes, sir. We're trying to fortify some

positions, create some strongpoints."

"Get a couple of backhoes from the base people, get

someone to locate the utilities, and dig

fortifications. Jackhammer the concrete. By dawn

I want your people dug in to the eyes."...This order might

be stretching the phrase "business as usualea"...b

comJake wasn't worried. Freighters carrying

weapons don't normally turn up missing.

"Yessir."

"What are you going to do if the Cubans

send tanks through the fence?"

"Then- tanks are old Soviet T-54's, I

believeea"...Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt said.

"We'll channel them into these two avenuesea"...he

pointed at the aerial photo, "then kill them

cremate the crews inside the tanks."

"Okay. When your people are dug in, dig any tank

traps that you want. You have carte blanche,

Colonel."

"Nobody is going into that warehouse, sir."

"Fine. We'll keep the Cuban Navy off your

back and give you air support. The cruisers will

provide artillery. Call us if you see or hear

anything suspicious."

Toad passed the colonel a list of radio

frequencies and they discussed communications for several

minutes.

Jake took that opportunity to wander off, to look

at the warehouse from all angles.

He was standing beside six large forklifts that were parked

near the main loading dock when Toad and Eckhardt

walked over to him. "Don't isolate these

forklifts from the pier when you're digging up

concreteea"...Jake advised.

"Of course not."

"One other thingea"...Jake said. "You'd better break

out the MOPP suits and have them beside every man."

MOPP stood for mission-oriented protective

posture, a term designed by career bureaucrats

to obfuscate the true nature of chemical and

biological warfare protection suits.

The colonel was going to say something about the suits,

then he decided to pass on it.

They talked for several minutes about the

battalion's problems, how the colonel was

deploying it. The colonel told Jake he was

putting people on the roofs of all the warehouses.

As Jake and Toad walked back to the Osprey,

Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt turned toward

warehouse nine and "scratched his head. He didn't

for a minute believe that building contained chemical and

biological weapons.

He frowned. A hijacked freighter? He had

been hi the Corps long enough to know how the navy

operated: this was just another readiness exercise but the

admiral didn't have the courtesy or decency

to say so. "Let's keep the grunts" assholes

twanging tight."...MOPP suits, hi the heat of the

Cuban summer!

Yeah.

"Cuba must learn to live with the

elephantea"...Hector Sedano told the crowd of

schoolteachers and administrators. "Our relations

with the United States have been the determining factor

in our history and will be the key to our future. Any

Cuban government that hopes to make Me better

for the people of Cuba must come to grips with the reality of the

colossus ninety miles north."

That was the nub of his message, pure and simple.

He was careful never to criticize Fidel Castro

or the government, knowing full well that to do so would be

the height of folly, an invitation to a prison

cell. Most of the people in this room were teachers, a few

were agents for the secret

police. Cuba was a dictatorship, a fact as

unremarkable as the island status of the nation.

Still, he was talking about the future, about a day still

to come when all things might change, a day that Cuba

would have to face someday, sometime. Everyone hi the room

understood that too, including the secret police, so

no one objected to his remarks. Hector

Sedano talked on, talking about education, jobs,

investment, opportunities, the building blocks

of the life sagas of human beings.

When he finished he sat down as the thunder of

applause rolled over him. He thought that his

audience's reaction was not to his message, which in

truth was not that new or fresh or interesting, but to the

fact that he was a private citizen speaking aloud

on sensitive political subjects. This his

audience found most remarkable. They stood on their

feet, applauded, pressed forward to touch bun,

to give him a greeting or blessing, reached between people

to touch bis clothes, his hands, his hair.

Afterward he sat and spoke privately to a knot of

people who wanted to be with him when that someday came. He

was more open, spoke about specifics but still spoke

guardedly, careful not to speak openly against the

government or to criticize Fidel.

In his heart of hearts Hector Sedano knew that

Fidel Castro must know what he had to say, must

know his message almost as diswell as he himself did.

Everything that the government knew, Fidel knew, for

he was the government.

And still Fidel let him speak. That was the remarkable

thing, and Hector had a theory about why this might be

so. When he was a young revolutionary in jail,

Fidel had written a political tract hi

defense of the Cuban revolution that became

its manifesto. He entitled it, "History Will

Absolve Me."...In it he defined "the p"...z "the

vast unredeemed masses, those to whom everyone

makes promises and who are deceived by all."

Maybe, Hector thought, Fidel Castro was still

looking for absolution from those who would come after.

Maybe

caret

STEPHEN COONTS

he was thinking about "the p"...even now, thinking of the

promises he had made and the reality that had come

to pass.

When he was leaving the school, on the way to the

borrowed car with two friends who accompanied him,

Hector found himself surrounded by well-dressed men,

obviously not local laborers.

"Hector Sedanoea"...sd one, "you are under arrest.

You must come with us."

He was stunned. "What am I charged with"..."...he

demanded.

. "That is not for us to discussea"...the man said, and took

his elbow. He pushed him toward a government van.

"They are arresting Sedanoea"...someone shouted. The shout

was taken up by others. As a crowd gathered,

shoved closer, shouting threats and obscenities, the

men around the van pushed Hector into it and jumped in

themselves. In seconds it was in motion.

Hector protested. He had done nothing wrong,

he was not wanted for any crime.

The man showed him a badge. "You are under

arrestea"...he said. "We have our orders. Now be

silent."

The van raced through the streets of the city, then took

the highway toward Havana.

Maximo Sedano was too excited to sleep. The

adrenaline aftershock of stabbing an ice pick

into Vargas's thug should have floored him, but the thought of

$53 million, plus interest, kept him wide

awake. That and the possibility of sirens.

He lay in the darkness listening. Every now and then he

heard a siren moaning, faint and far away. He

waited in dread suspense for that moan to join others

and become a wailing convoy of police vehicles

converging on his hotel, followed by the stamping of a

hoard of policemen charging upstairs to arrest him.

He twitched with every howl in the night, though they were

few and faint and never seemed to

CUBA

MF-

grow louder. In the silence between moans he amused

himself by trying to calculate the amount of interest that

might be due on Castro's hoard.

He hadn't seen a statement in about six months

... call it six months exactly, half a

year. Interest at 2.45 percent, on $53

million ... almost 650,000 American

dollars.

Ha! The interest alone would buy a nice small

villa on Ibiza. Of course he should not rule out

Majorca, nor Minorca for that matter, until

he had traveled over each of the islands and seen

local conditions for himself, and checked the real estate

market. No, indeed. He would visit all the

Balearic Islands in turn, including Formentera and

Cabrera, stay at local urns, drink local

wine, eat lamb and beef and fish prepared as the

islanders preferred ...

Ahh, his dream was within Ms grasp. Tomorrow. In just a

few short hours. When the banks opened he would go

immediately to the one with the largest account, submit the

transfer card, men to the next one, and finally, the one

with the smallest amount on deposit, a mere $11

million.

Maximo paced the room, stared out the

window at the lights of the city that housed his fortune,

paced some more.

He was full almost to bursting, too excited

to sleep.

He had almost run back to the hotel from the

railroad station. He had taken his time though,

walked slowly and unhurriedly, paused to feed the

ducks under one of the Limmat bridges, slipped the

ice pick into the river when no one was watching, then

walked on to the hotel so full of joy and happiness

he could barely contain himself.

At about four hi the morning he began to wind down

somewhat, so he lay down on the bed. In minutes

he was asleep.

When Maximo awoke the sun was up, he could hear

a maid running a vacuum sweeper in the next

room.

He checked his watch. Almost eight-thirty.

He showered, shaved, put on clean clothes from the

skin out, then packed his bags. He would come back

to the hotel this afternoon diswhen he had finished his banking and

check

out. He wanted to be long gone if Santana showed

up looking for Rail and the money.

There was a continental breakfast laid out in

the hotel dining room, so Maximo paused there for

coffee and a French roll.

Suitably fortified, with his attach caret case in

bis left hand and the transfer cards signed

by Fidel in his inside breast pocket, Maximo

Sedano set off afoot for the bank that was to be bis

first stop. It was a mere two blocks away, a

huge old building of thick stone walls and small

windows, a building hundreds of years old with the

treasure of the ages in its vaults.

Me spoke to a clerk, was ushered into a small

windowless office to see a middle-aged man who

wore a green eyeshade and spoke tolerably good

Spanish. Maximo surrendered the appropriate

transfer card and settled down to wait after the clerk

left the room.

The bank was quiet. Footsteps were lost on the

vast wood and stone floors. Humans seemed to be

the intruders here, temporary visitors who came

and went while the bank endured the storms of the

centuries, a monument to the power of capital.

Five pleasant minutes passed, then five more.

Maximo was in no hurry. He was prepared to wait

quite a while for $53 million, even if it took

all day. Or several days. After all,

he had waited a lifetime so far. But he wouldn't have

to wait long. The clerk would be back momentarily.

And he was.

He came in, looked at Maximo with an odd

expression, handed him back the transfer card with just

the slightest hint of a bow.

"I am sorry, sefior, but the balance of this account

is so low that the transfer is impossible to honor."

Maximo gaped uncomprehendingly. He

swallowed, then said, "What did you say?"

"I am sorry, sefior, but there has been some

mistake."

"Not on my partea"...Maximo replied heatedly.

The clerk gave a tight little professional smile.

"The bank's records are perfectly clear."...He

held out the transfer card. "This account contains just a

few dollars over one thousand."

Maximo couldn't believe his ears. "Where did the

money go?"

"Obviously, due to the bank secrecy laws I

have limited discretion about what I can say."

Maximo Sedano leaped across the table at the man,

grabbed him by his lapels.

"Where did-the money go, fool"..."...he roared.

"Someone with the proper authorization ordered the money

transferred, senor. That much is obvious. I can

say no more."

And the clerk wriggled from his grasp.

The story was the same at the next two banks

Maximo Sedano visited. Each account contained just

a few dollars above the minimum amount necessary

to maintain the account.

The horror of his position hit Maximo tike

a hammer. Not only was there no money here for him,

Alejo Vargas would kill him when he got back

to Cuba.

He told the bank officer at the last bank he

visited that he wanted to make a telephone call,

and he wanted the bank officer there to talk to the

person at the other end.

He called Vargas at home, caught him before

he went to his office.

After he had explained about the accounts, he asked

the bank officer to verify what he had said. The

officer refused to touch the telephone. "The bank

secrecy laws are very strictea"...he said

self-righteously. Maximo wanted to strangle him.

Vargas had of course listened to this little exchange.

"There is no moneyea"...Maximo told the

secret-police chief. "Someone has stolen it."

"You assea"...Vargas hissed.

"You

have stolen the money.

You

are the finance minister."

"Call the other banks, Alejoea"...he urged.

"They are here in Zurich. I will give you their names

and the account numbers. Listen to what the bank officers

have to say."

"You are a capital ass, Sedano. The Swiss

bankers will not talk to me. The money was deposited

in Switzerland precisely

because

those bastards will talk to no one."

"I will call you from their office and have them speak to you."

"Have you lost your mind? What are you playing at?"

This was a scene from a nightmare.

"If I had the money I would not set foot in

Cuba again, Vargas. We both know that. Use your

head! I don't have the money: I'm coming home."

He tried to slam the instrument into its cradle and

missed, sent it skittering off the table. Fumbling,

he picked it up by the cord, hung the thing properly

on the cradle.

The account officer looked at him with professional

solicitude, much like an undertaker smiling at die

next of kin.

Perhaps the banks have stolen Fidel's money,

Maximo thought.

These Swiss bastards pocketed the Jews' money;

maybe they are keeping Fidel's.

He opened his mouth to say that very thing to the account officer

sitting across the table, then thought better of it He

picked up his attache"...case with the pistol in it and

walked slowly out of the bank.

The van took Hector Sedano to La Cabana

fortress hi Havana. It stopped hi a dark

courtyard where other men were waiting. They took him

into the prison, down long corridors, through iron

doors that opened before him and closed after him, until

finally they stood before an empty cell hi the

isolation area of the prison. Here they demanded his

clothes, his shoes, his watch, die things in his

pockets. When he stood naked someone gave him a

one-piece jumpsuit. Wearing only that, he was

thrust into die cell and the door was locked behind him.

The journey from (he everyday world of people and

voices and cares and concerns to the stark,

vile reality of a prison cell is one of the most

violent transitions in this life. The present and the

future had been ripped from Hector Sedano,

leaving only his memories of the past.

Hector was well aware of the fact that he could be

physically abused, beaten, even executed, at the

whim of whoever had ordered him jailed. People disappeared

in Cuban prisons, never to be heard from again.

The parallels between his situation and that of Christ

while awaiting his crucifixion immediately leaped

to Hector's Jesuit mind. Not far behind was the

realization that Fidel Castro had also been

imprisoned before the revolution.

Perhaps prison is a natural stage in the Me

of a revolutionary. Imprisonment by the old regime

for one's beliefs was de facto recognition that the

beliefs were dangerous and the person who held them a

worthy enemy. The person imprisoned was

automatically elevated in stature and respect

These thoughts swirled through Hector's mind as he

sat on a hard wooden bunk without blankets and

gave in to his emotions. He found himself shaking with

anger. He paced, he pounded on the walls with his

fists until they were raw.

Finally he threw himself on the bunk and

lay staring into the gloom.

Angel del Mar

pitched and rolled viciously as she wallowed

helplessly in the swells. In every direction nothing

could be seen but sea and cloudy sky. The sky was

completely covered now with cloud, the wind was picking

up, and the swells were getting bigger, with a shorter

period between them. Aboard the boat, many people lay on

their stomach and hugged the heaving deck.

Everyone on board suffered from the lack of water,

some to a greater degree than others. Ocho Sedano,

who had had only a few mouthfuls since the boat

left Cuba and had pushed himself relentlessly, without

mercy, was desperate.

His eyes felt like burning coals, his skin

seemed on fire, his tongue a thick, lifeless

lump of dead flesh in a cracked, dry mouth.

He wasn't perspiring much now. Of all his

symptoms, that one worried him the most. As an

athlete he knew the importance of regulating

body temperature.

Dora lay in the shade cast by the wheelhouse and said

nothing. She had been sick a time or two, vomit

stained her dress. She seemed to be resting easier

now.

Beside her lay her father, Diego Coca. He was

conscious, his eyes fierce and bright, his jaw swollen

and misshapen. He hadn't moved in hours,

unwilling to let anyone else have his spot in the

shade.

Ocho sat heavily near Dora, scanned the sea

slowly and carefully.

My

God, there must be a ship! A ship or boatsomething

to give us food and water...

In all this sea there must be hundreds of fishing

boats and yachts, dozens of freighters,

smugglers, American Coast Guard cutters

hunting smugglers, warships... Where the hell are

they? Where are all these goddamn boats and ships?

From time to time he heard jets flying over, occasionally

saw one below the clouds, but they stayed high,

disappeared into the sea haze.

Under the mast an old woman sat weeping. She was

the one who grieved for the. captain, for some of the people who

were washed overboard that first night She wept

silently, her shoulders shaking, her breath coming in

gasps.

He wanted to hug her, to comfort her, but mere was nothing

he could say. His brother Hector would have

known what to say, but Ocho did not.

He looked longingly at Dora, Dora who was

once beautiful, and he could think of nothing to say

to her. Nothing.

All the promise that life held, and they had thrown

it away on a wild, stupid, doomed chance.

Diego had led

them, prodded them, demanded they go, and still he could think

of nothing to say to Diego.

He was so tired, so lethargic. He had pumped

for hours, just keeping up with the water. If the water

came in any faster... well, he didn't want

to mink about it. They would all die then. They would have

little chance swimming in the open sea.

Ocho slumped over onto the moving deck. He

was so tired, if he could just sleep, sleep....

The old fisherman shook him awake. The sun was

setting, the boat still rolling her guts out in the

swell.

"A fish..."...He held it up, about eighteen or

twenty inches long. "No way to cook it, have to eat

it raw. Keep up your strength."

With two quick swipes of his knife, the fisherman

produced two bleeding fillets. He offered one

to Ocho, who closed his eyes and bit into the

raw fish. He chewed.

Someone was clawing at him, tearing at the fish.

He opened his eyes. Diego Coca was stuffing a

piece of the fish in his swollen mouth.

The old man kicked Diego in the stomach,

doubled him over, then pried his jaws apart and

extracted the unchewed fish.

"He's manning the pump that keeps you afloat,

you son of a bitch. He has to eat or every one of us

will die."

Diego got a grip on the fisherman's knife

and lunged for him.

He grabbed for the slippery flesh, swung

wildly with the knife.

This time the old man kicked him hi the arm. The

knife bounced once on the deck, then landed at an

angle with the blade sticking into the wood, quivering.

The fisherman waited for the boat to roll, then

kicked Diego in the head. He went over

backward and bis head made a hollow thunk as it

hit the wooden deck. He went limp and lay

unmoving.

Retrieving his knife, the fisherman ate his chunk

of raw

fish in silence. Ocho chewed ravenously,

letting the moisture bathe his mouth and throat. He

held each piece in his mouth for several seconds,

sucking at the juices, then reluctantly

swallowing it down.

Dora watched him with feverish eyes. He passed

her a chunk of the fish and she rammed it into her mouth,

all of it at once, chewed greedily while eyeing

the old man, almost as if she were afraid he would

take it from her.

After she swallowed it, she tried to grin.

Ocho averted his eyes.

"Your turn on the pumpea"...the old man said.

Diego lay right where he had fallen.

Ocho got up, went into the wheelhouse and down into the

engine room. The water in the bilge was sloshing around

over his shoes as he began working the pump handle, up

and down, up and down, endlessly.

Hours later someone came to relieve him, one of the

men in the captain's family. Ocho staggered up the

stairs, so exhausted he had trouble making his hands do

what he wanted.

The people on deck had more fish. Ocho sat heavily

by the wheelhouse. In the dim light from the stars and

moon, he could see people ripping fish apart with their bare

hands, stuffing flesh into their mouths, wrestling

to get to fish that jumped over the rail when the boat

rolled.

He collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

One of the butlers unlocked the bedroom door and

took Mercedes to see Colonel Santana, who

was standing behind Fidel's desk sorting papers. He

didn't look up when she first came in. She found

a chair and sat.

"The government has not yet decided when or how

to announce the death of

el presidente.

No doubt it will happen hi a few days, but until

it does you are to remain here, in the residence, and

talk to no one. Security Department people are on the

switchboards and will monitor all telephone

calls. The telephone lines that do not go through the

switchboard have been disconnected."

He eyed her askance, then went back to sorting

papers. "After the official version of Fidel's

death is written and announced, you will be free to go.

I remind you now that disputing the official version of

events is a crime."

"Everyone swears to your history before you write

it"..."...she snapped.

Santana looked at her and smiled.

"I was searching for the proper words to explain the nub of

it and they just came to y"...he snapped his fingers"...l that.

It is a gift, I think. When you say it so

precisely, I know you understand. Ignorance will not be

a defense if there is ever a problem."

Mercedes got up from the chair and left the room.

She wandered the hallways and reception rooms, the

private areas, the offices, all now deserted. Every

square foot was fuUs of memories. She could see

him talking to people, bending down slightly to hear, for he

had been a'talj man. She could not remember when

he had not been the presi-

dent of Cuba. When she was a girl, he was there.

As a young woman, he was there. When she married, was

widowed, when he took her to be his woman ...

always, all her life there was Fidel.

Such a man he had been! She was a Latin

woman, and Fidel had been the epitome of the

Latin man, a brilliant, athletic man, a

commanding speaker, a perfect patriot, a man who

defined machismo. The facets of Fidel's

personality that the non-Latin world found most

irritating were those Cubans accepted as hallmarks

of a man. He was selfrighteous, proud, sure of his

own importance and place in history, never

admitted error, and refused to yield when

humiliated by the outside world. He had struggled,

endured, won much and lost even more, and in a way that

non-Latins would never understand, had become the

personification of Cuba.

And she had loved him.

In the room where he died the television cameras and

lights were still in place, the wires still strung.

Only Fidel's body was missing.

She stood looking at the scene, remembering it,

seeing him again as he was when she had known him best.

Still magnificent.

Now the tears came, a clouding of the eyes that she was

powerless to stop. She found a chair and wept

silently.

Her mind wandered off on a journey of its own,

recalling scenes of her life, moments with her mother,

her first husband, Fidel....

The tears had been dry for quite a while when she

realized with a start that she was still sitting in this room.

The cameras were there in front of her, mounted on

heavy, wheeled tripods.

These cameras must have some kind of film in them,

videotape. She went to the nearest camera and

examined it. Tentatively she pushed and

tugged at buttons, levers, knobs. Finally a

plate popped open and mere was the videocassette.

She removed it from the camera and closed the plate.

There was also a cassette in the second camera.

With both cassettes concealed in the folds of her

dress, Mercedes strode from the room.

A wave breaking over the deck doused Ocho

Sedano with lukewarm water and woke him from a

troubled, exhausted steep.

Angel del Mar

was riding very low in the water. Even as he realized that

the bilges must be full, another wave washed over

the deck.

Ocho dashed below. The old fisherman slumped

over the pump, water sloshed nearly waist-deep in

die bilge. Ocho eased bun aside, began

pumping. He could feel the resistance, feel the

water moving through the pump. He laid into it with a will.

"Sorryea"...the old man said weakly. "Worn out.

Just worn out"

"Go up on deck. Dry out some, disdrink some

water."

The old man nodded, crawled slowly up the

steep ladder. He slipped once, almost smashed his

face on one of the steps. Finally his feet

disappeared into the wheelhouse.

Three rain showers during the night had allowed

everyone on board to drink their fill, to replenish

dehydrated tissue, and when Ocho last looked,

mere were several gallons of water hi the bucket

under the tarp that no one could drink.

Ocho was no longer thirsty, but he was hungry as

hell. There had been no more fish. Without line,

hooks, bait, or nets they were unable to catch fish

from the sea. Unless the creatures leaped onto the

deck of the boat they were out of reach. So far, there had

been no more of those.

The tarp they caught the diswater in gave the

liquid a brackish taste, which everyone ignored.

Still, water on an empty stomach made one aware

of just how hungry he was.

Ocho pumped, felt his muscles loosen up,

enjoyed the resistance mat meant the pump was moving

water. After fifteen minutes of maximum effort

he could see that the

water level was down about six inches. He settled

in to work at a steady, sustainable pace.

The horizon remained empty. Empty! Not a

boat or sail. Endless swells and sky hi every

direction.

It was almost as if the Lord had abandoned them, left

them to die on this leaky little boat in the midst of this

great vast ocean, while planes went overhead and

boats and ships passed by on every side, just over the

horizon.

We won't have to wait long,

Ocho thought.

Our fate is very near. If the chain on this pump

breaks, if we run out of energy to pump, if the

swells get larger and waves start coming aboard, the

boat will break up and the people will go into the sea. That would be

our fate, to drown like all those people who went overboard

that first night.

They are dead now, surely. Past all caring.

Amazing how that works. Everyone has to die, but you

only have to do it once. You fight like hell to get

there, though, and when you arrive the world continues as if you

had never been.

As he pumped he wondered about his mother, how she was

doing, wondered if he should have told her he was going

to America.

An hour later Ocho was still pumping, the water was

down several feet and the boat was riding better in the

sea. And he was wearing out. He heard someone coming

down the ladder, then saw feet. It was

Dora.

She clung to the ladder, watched him standing in water

to his knees working die pump handle up and down,

up and down, up and down.

"It's Papaea"...she said.

He said nothing, waited for her to go on.

"I think he has given up."

Ocho kept pumping.

"Speak to me, Ocho. Don't insult me with your

silence."

Ocho switched arms without missing a stroke. "What

is there to say? If he has given up, he has

given up.". "Will we be rescued?"'

,

"Am I God? How would I know?"

"1 am

sick

of this boat, this oceanff"...she snarled. "Sick of it,

you understand?"'

"I understand."

She sobbed, sniffed loudly.

Ocho kept pumping.

"I don't think you love meea"...she said, finally.

"I don't know that I do."

She watched him pump, up and down,

rhythmically, endlessly.

"Doesn't that make you tired?"

"Yes."

"We're going to die, aren't we?"

He wiped the sweat from his face with

backslash as

free hand. "All of us, sooner or later, yes."

"I mean now. This boat is going to sink.

We're going to drown."

He looked at her for the first time. Her skin was

stretched tightly over her face, her teeth were

bared, her eyes were narrowed with an intensity he had

never seen before.

"I don't knowea"...he said gently.

"I don't want to die now."

He lowered his face so that he wouldn't have to look

at her, kept the handle going up and down.

She went back up the ladder, disappeared from

view.

Ocho paused, straightened as best he could under the

low overhead and looked critically at the water

remaining in the boat. He was gaining. He stretched,

crossed himself on the off chance God might be

watching, then went back to pumping.

The dA's man in Cuba was an

American, Dr. Henri Bouchard, a former

college professor who lived and worked inside the

American Interest Section of the Swiss

embassy, a complex of buildings that in former days

housed the American embassy and presumably

someday would again.

STEPHEN COONTS

The Cubans watched the American diplomats very

closely, so this officer had no contact with the

agency's covert intelligence apparatus on the

island. He kept himself busy watching television,

listening to radio, collecting Cuban newspapers

and publications and writing reports based on what

he saw, heard, and read. His diplomatic

colleagues were congenial and the life was

semi-monastic, which he found agreeable.

The man who ran the covert side of the business, was

a Cuban who had never set foot inside the

U.s. Interest Section and probably never would.

He owned a wholesale seafood operation on the

waterfront in Havana Harbor. Every day the fishing

boats brought their catch to his pier and every day he

purchased what he thought he could sell. Both the

price he paid and the price he charged were

set by the government: had there not been a black

market for fish he would have starved.

The cover was decent A Cuban fishing boat could

meet an Americaneaboat or submarine at sea,

passing messages or material in either direction.

The spymaster's delivery trucks visited every

restaurant, casino, and embassy in the capital.

With people and things coming and going, the old man could keep his

pulse on Cuba. He was called el Tiburon,

the Shark.

William Henry Chance had no intention of ever

meeting el Tiburon unless disaster was staring him in the

face. The CIA man in the American Interest

Section was another matter.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Chance. Delighted to meet you,

of course."

Dr. Bouchard shook hands with Chance and Carmellini

as he peered at them over the top of his glasses.

He led them down several narrow hallways to a

tiny, windowless cubicle in the bowels of the building.

"Sorry to say, mis is the office. Security,

you know. They used to store food in here. Damp but

quiet"...He took a stack of newspapers off the

only guest chair and moved

them to Ms desk, extracted a folding

metal chair from behind his desk and unfolded it for

Carmellini, then settled into his ctfair.

The knees of all three men almost touched. "So how

are you enjoying Cuba?"

"Fascinatingea"...Chance muttered.

"Yes, isn't it"..."...Professor Bouchard beamed

complacently. "Six years I've been here, and I

don't ever want to leave. I don't miss the

snow, I'll tell you, or the faculty

politics, feuds, dog-eat-dog jealousy over

department budgetsthank God I'm-out of all that."

Chance nodded, unwilling to get to the point.

"We met once or twice before, I thinkea"...Chance

reminded Bouchard.

"Oh, yes, I do seem to recall... $'e

They discussed it.

"My associate, Mr. Carmellini. I don't

think you've met him."

The pleasantries over at last, Chance edged around

to business. "You have a few items in your storeroom

that we need to borrow, I believe."

"Certainly. The inventory is in the safe. If you

gentlemen will step into the hall for a moment..."

They did so and he fiddled with the dial of the safe.

When he had the file he wanted and the safe

was closed and locked, he seated himself again at his

desk. Chance sat back down. Carmellini

remained standing.

"This is the inventory, I'm sure. Yes. What

is it you want?"

"Two Rugers with silencers, ammunition, two

garroting wires, two fighting knives, a dozen

disposable latex gloves, two self-contained gas

masks"

"Let's see..."...The professor ran his finger

down the list. "Guns, check. Ammo, okay.

Knives ... knives ... oh, here they are.

Wires, garroting, check ... gloves ...

masks. Yes, I think we have what you need. Do you

want to take this stuff with you?"

"I think so. In a suitcase of some kind, if you

can manage that."

"I'll have to give you one of mine. You can'return

it or pay me for it, as you prefer."

"We'll try to return it."

"That's best, I think. The accounting department is so

difficult about expense accounts. You gentlemen

wait here; I'll see what I can do. While

you're waiting, would you like a cup of coffee, a soft

drink?"

"I'm fine caret Chance said.

"Don't worry about meea"...Carmellini said.

"This will take a few minutesea"...the professor

advised. "Would you like to wait in the courtyard? The

flora there is my hobby, and the eagle from the Maine

Memorial is a rare work of art."

"That's the big eagle over the doorway?"

"Yes. After the revolution Castro demanded it

be'removed from the Maine Memorial. That was about the

time he announced he was a communist, before the Bay of

Pigs. Difficult era for everyone."

"Ah, yes. We'll find our way."

"I'll look for you in the courtyard when I have your

itemsea"...the professor said, and scurried off. ,

The eagle was huge. "Quite a work of

artea"...Carmellini muttered.

"Too big for youea"...Chance said.

"I don't know about thatea"...Carmellini replied, and

glanced around to see if there was any way to get the thing

out of the mission ground with a crane. "Run a mobile

construction crane up to the wall, send a man down

on the hook, haul it out. I could snatch it and be

gone in six or seven minutes."

Chance didn't even bother to frown. Carmellini had

a habit of chaffing him in an unoffensive

way; protest would be futile.

'The professor is the most incurious man I've

ever met,"

Tommy Carmellini said conversationally a few

minutes later.

"He doesn't want to know too much."

"He doesn't want to know anythingea"...Carmellini

protested. "People who don't ask obvious questions

worry me."

"Hmmmea"...sd William Henry Chance, who

didn't seem at all worried.

The professor came looking for them a half hour

later. After he had scrawled an illegible

signature on a detailed custody card, Chance

offered the professor a photo of a man that his

surveillance team had taken outside the

University of Havana science building. The man

was in his sixties, slightly overweight, balding,

and looking at the camera almost full face. He

didn't see the camera that took the picture, of

course, since it was in the van.

"If you could, Professor, I would like you to send this

to Washington. I want to know who this man is."

"American"..."...Dr. Bouchard asked, accepting the

photo and glancing at it.

"I have no idea, sir. We've seen him around here

and there and wondered who he might be. Would you have the

folks in Langley try to find out?"

"Of courseea"...the professor said, and put the photo

in his pocket.

Toad Tarkington was in a rare foul mood. He

snapped at the yeomen, snarled at the flag

lieutenant, fumed over the message board, and

generally glowered at anyone who looked his way.

This state of affairs could not go on, of course, so

he went to Ms stateroom, put on his running

togs, and went on deck for a jog. The tropical

sea air, the long foaming rollers, the puffy

clouds running on the breeze, the deep blue of the

Caribbeanall of it made his mood more foul.

None of the leads to find the

Colon

had borne fruit. The ship was still missing, the

captain and crew had stayed

aboard her all the time she was tied to the pier in

Guantanamo, the gloom seemed impenetrable. The

air wing was still searching, but as yet, nothing! And of

course the temperature of the rhetoric coming from the

White House and Pentagon was rising by the hour.

Toad was jogging aft from the bow when a

petty officer from the admiral's staff flagged him

down. "The AI'S have a photo of the Coston!"

"Where is she?"

"Aground on a reef off the north shore of

Cuba:"

Toddad bolte.d for the hatchway that led down into the

ship, the petty officer right behind.

The photo was of the

Colon,

all right. The ship looked as if it were wedged on some

rocks, almost as if it grounded during a high tide.

Now the tide was out and the

Colon

was marooned.

"When was this picture taken"..."...Toad demanded of the

air intelligence officers.

"Yesterday."

"And no one recognized it?"

"Not until today.".

Toad growled. "Have you passed this to the admiral?"

"Yes, sir."

"Show me the location."

The AI pinpointed the location on a sectional

chart.

Toad called Jake Grafton. "I

want to see that shipea"...Jake said. "As soon as

possible. We'll take an F-14 with a TARPS

package."...TARPS stood for tactical air

reconnaissance pods. Each pod contained two

cameras and an infrared line scanner.

Cuba is an island surrounded by islands, over

sixteen hundred of them. Most of the islands on

Cuba's north shore are small, uninhabited,

rocky bits of tropical paradise, or so they

looked to Jake Grafton, who saw them through

binoculars from the front seat of an F-14.

The ship was about three miles offshore, stranded on

rocks that just pierced the surface of the sea. The

breaking surf looked white through the binoculars.

The freighter was plainly visible, listing slightly.

Some of the weapons containers were visible on the main

deck. Jake checked the photo in his lap, which was

taken yesterday by an FirstA-18 Hornet pilot

with a hand-held 35-mm camera. Yep, the containers

visible in the photo were still in place aboard the ship.

Although the Cubans claimed a twelve-mile

territorial limit, the United States

recognized but three.

Nuestra Senora de Colon

was stranded on a reef in international

waters, the AI'S assured Jake. They had

checked with the State Department, they said.

South of the ship was the entrance to Bahia de Nipe,

a decent-sized shallow-water bay.

Was the ship on her way into the bay when she went on

the rocks?

Jake was making his initial photo passes a

mile to seaward of the

Colon.

In the event the Cubans chose to send interceptors

to chase him away, he had a flight of F-14's

ten miles farther north providing cover. Above them

was an EA-6But Prowler electronic warfare

airplane, listening forand ready to jam any Cuban

fire-control radar that came on the air. According to the

electronic warfare detection gear in Jake's

cockpit, he was being painted only by search radars.

That, as he well knew, could change any second.

He had just completed a photo pass from west to east

and was turning to seaward when the E-2 came on the

air. "Battlestar One, we have company. Bogey

twenty miles west of your posit, heading your way.

Looks like a Fulcrum."...A Fulcrum was a

MiGo-29.

Jake keyed his radio mike. "Roger

that. I'll make one more photo pass before he gets

here, then exit the area to the north."

He tucked the nose down and let the Tomcat

accelerate. The plane was alive in his handthe

descending jet bumped and bounced in the swirling,

roiling tropical air

under the puffy cumulus clouds drifting along on the

trade wind.

"Cameras are on and runningea"...Toad Tarkington

said from the back seat.

Staying just outside the three-mile limit, Jake

flew past the stern of the stranded freighter one more time,

which meant he was probably getting fine views of

her stern and oblique views of her flanks.

"Since we're here ..."...he muttered, and dropped

a wing as he eased the stick and throttles forward.

In the back seat, Toad Tarkington was monitoring

the recon package. "I sure am glad we're

staying out of Cuban airspaceea"...he told Jake.

"I'd feel a lot more comfortable outside the

twelve-mile limit, but that's asking too much of this

technology. A ship sitting on the rocks like this,

looks like a setup to me. They're looking

to mousetrap some dude flying by snapping pictures

and perforate his heinie."

"Yeahea"...sd Jake Grafton, and leveled off at

a hundred feet above the water. He had the

F-14 flying parallel with the axis of the ship,

offset with the ship to his right since the recon

package was mounted under his right engine.

"Got the cameras and IR scanner going?"

"Oh, yeah, looking real goodea"...Toad said, just as

he picked up the seascape passing by the canopy with

his peripheral vision. He looked right just in time

to see the freighter flash by, then Jake

Grafton pulled back on the stick and lit the

afterburners. The Tomcat's nose rose to sixty

degrees above the horizon and it went up like a

rocket, corkscrewing back toward the ocean, as the

E-2 Hawkeye radar operator called the

bogey for the Showtime F-14 crews who were

Jake's armed guard. Both RIO'S said they had

the bogey on radar.

"Like I saidea"...Toad told Jake, "sure is

great we're staying outside Cuban airspace."

"Greatea"...his pilot agreed.

"Don't want to piss anybody off."

"Oh, no."

"Wonder why that ship ended up where it did?"

"Maybe the photos will tell us."

"Bogey is six miles aft, Battlestar

Oneea"...the E-2 Hawkeye radar operator said,

"four hundred knots, closing from your eight o'clock."

"You wanna turn toward him, Admiral, let me

pick him up on the radar"..."...Toad asked this question.

"No, let's clear to seaward."

"I got him visualea"...Toad said as the Tomcat

climbed past fifteen thousand feet. "He's a little

above us, pulling lead."

"Pulling lead"..."...Jake looked over his left

shoulder, found the MiGo-29.

"He could take a gunshot anytimeea"...Toad said.

"He's rendezvousingea"...Jake said, "Gonna join

on our left wing, looks like."

And that is what the MiGo did. He closed

gently, his nose well out in front, his axis almost

parallel, a classic rendezvous. The MiGo

stabilized in a parade position, about four feet

between wingtips, stepped down perhaps three feet.

Despite the bumpy air the MiGo held position

effortlessly.

Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington sat staring

at the helmeted figure of Carlos Corrado in

the other cockpit. Toad lifted his 35-mm

camera, snapped off a dozen photos of the

Cuban fighter and the two air-to-air missiles

hanging on the racks.

"Think he knows we were inside the three-mile

limit"..."...Toad asked Jake.

"His GCI controller told him, probably."

Corrado stayed glued to the F-14. He paid no

attention to the other Tomcats that came swooping in

to join the formation, didn't even bother to glance at

them.

Jake Grafton slowly advanced his throttles

to 95 percent RPM. The MiGo was right with him.

Leaving the power set, he got the nose coming up,

began to roll away from the MiGo, up and over to the

inverted and right on through,

coming on with the G to keep the nose from scooping out ...

a medium-sloppy barrel roll.

Now a barrel roll to the left. The two

F-14's behind Carlos Corrado moved

into trail position, behind and stepped down slightly,

to more easily stay with the maneuvering airplanes, but

Corrado held his position in left parade as if

he were welded there.

Now a loop. Up, up, up and over the top, G

increasing down the backside, the sea and sky changing

position very nicely, the sun dancing across

the cockpit. .

"This guy's pretty goodea"...Toad remarked

grudgingly.

"Pretty good?"

"Okay, he's a solid stick."

Now a half loop and half roll at the top,

fly along straight and level for a count of five,

roll again and half turn into a lopsided split

S, one offset from the vertical by forty-five

degrees. Coming out of the dive Jake let the nose

climb until it was pointed straight up; he

slowly rolled around his axis, then pulled the plane

on over onto its back and waited until the nose

was forty-five degrees below the horizon before rolling

wings level and beginning his pullout. Through it all

Carlos Corrado stayed glued in position on

Jake's wing.

Coming out of the last maneuver, Jake Grafton

turned eastward. The MiGo-29 stayed with the

American fighters for fifteen more minutes, until

the flight was near the eastern tip of Cuba, Cape

Maisi, and turning south. Only then did Carlos

Corrado wave at Jake and Toad and lower his

nose to cross under the F-14.

Out of the corner of his eye Jake saw

Toad salute the MiGo pilot as he turned

away to the west.

"Wonder why that ship ended up on those

rocks"..."...Toad Tarkington mused aloud. Jake

Grafton, Gil Pascal, Lieutenant

Colonel Eckhardt, Toad, and several of the

photo interpretation specialists were bent over a

table in the Air

Intelligence spaces studying the photographs from

the F-14's reconnaissance pod.

"Maybe the person at the con was lostea"...the senior

AI speculated.

"Or didn't know the watersea"...the marine suggested.

"Maybe the Cubans wanted it thereea"...Gil said.

Jake Grafton used a magnifying glass

to study photos of the island closest to the stranded

freighter.

"Here's a crew setting up an artillery

pieceea"...he said, and straightened so everyone could see.

"If they planned to strand the ship on those rocks,

one would think they would have set up guns and a few

SAM batteries in advance."

"Maybe that's what they want us to think."

"How far is the ship from the nearest dry

land?"'

"Three point two nautical miles, sir."...That

was one of the photo interpretation specialists, a first

class petty officer. "If you look at this

satellite photo of the mam island, Admiral, you

will see that there are two SAM batteries near this

small port ten miles south of where the

Colon

went on the rocks."

"That's probably where the ship was going when it hit the

rocksea"...Jake said. "Or where it had been. So how

many artillery and missile sites are in the area?"

"Four,"

"We'll have EA-6But Prowlers and

FirstA-18 Hornets overhead, HARM

missiles on the rails, F-14's as cover.

The instant one of those fire-control radars comes on

the air, I want it taken out."

"When do you want to land aboard the ship"..."...Eckhardt

asked.

Jake Grafton looked at his watch. "One hi

the morning."

"Five hours from now?"

"Can we do it?"

"If we push."

"Let's push. I talked to General Totten in the

Pentagon. He agreeswe should inspect that ship as

soon as possible. For me, that's five hours from

now. We will go in three

Ospreys. The lead Osprey will puf Commander

Tarkington and me on the ship; Lieutenant

Colonel Eckhardt will be in the second bird

leading a rescue team to pull us out if anything

goes wrong. The third Osprey will contain another

ten-man team, led by your executive officer."

Captain Pascal zeroed in immediately. "Do the people in

Washington know that you intend to board that ship,

Admiral?"

"No, and I'm not going to ask."

"Sir, if you get caughta two-star admiral on

a ship stranded in Cuban waters?"

"The ship is in international waters. We must find

out what happened aboard the

Colon

after it left Guantaiiamo. The stakes are very

high. I am going to take a personal look.

While I'm gone, Gil, you have the con."

"Admiral, with all due respect, sir, I

think you should take more than just one person with you. Why

not a half dozen well-armed marines?"

"I don't know what's on that

shipea"...Jake'"explained. "There may be people

aboard, there may be a biological hazard, it

may be booby-trapped. It just makes sense to have a

point man explore the unknown before we risk very many

lives. I am going to be the point man because I

want to personally see what is there, and I make the

rules. Understand?"

The news about the loss of a ship loaded with

biological weapons arrived in Washington with the

impact of a highexplosive warhead on a cruise

missile.

When the National Security Council met to be

briefed about the ship the president was there, and he was

in an ugly mood.

"Let me get this straight,"eahe said, interrupting

the national security adviser, who was briefing the

group. "We decided to remove our stockpile of

biological and chemical warheads from

Guantdnamo Bay when we heard Castro

might be developing biological weapons of his

own. Is that correct?"

"The timing was incidental, sir. They were scheduled

to be moved."

"Scheduled to be moved next yearea"...the president

saitl acidly. "We hurried things along when the

CIA got wind that El Gato might be shipping

lab equipment to Cuba. Will you grant me that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Just for the record, why in hell were those damned things

in Gitmo in the first place?"

"A computer error, sir, back when the Pentagon

was prepositioning war supplies at Guantanamo.

Somehow the CBW material got on the list, and by the

time the error was discovered, the stuff was on its way."

The president's lip curled in a sneer. "Did

this circle jerk happen under my administration?"

"No, sir. The previous one."

The president glanced at the ceiling. "Thank you,

God."

He took a deep breath, exhaled, then said, "So

we decided to clean up old mistakes. We

didn't want to take the chance Castro knew of our

CBW stockpiles at Gitmo when we started

fulminating about bis." The president was addressing

the national security adviser. "But to cover our

asses, you wanted a carrier battle group that just

happened to be in the Caribbean to keep an eye on

things while you got the weapons out. Just

having the navy hanging around would keep the Cubans

honest, you said."

"Yes, sir."

"And now a ship full of weapons from the Gitmo

warehouse is on the rocks off the Cuban coast."

'The ship is on the rocks, but we don't know if

any weapons are still aboard."...v

"Are you going to court-martial the admiral in charge

of the battle group"..."...the president asked the

chairman of the joint chiefs, General Howard D.

"Tater"...Totten, a small, gray-haired man

who looked like he was hiding inside the

green, badged, bemedaled uniform of a four-star army

general.

"No, sir. He was told to quote 'monitor"

unquote the situation in Guantanamo, not escort

cargo ships. He actually had the cargo ship that was

hijacked escorted out of Cuban waters, but he

didn't disdirect that it be escorted all the way

to Norfolk. No one did, because apparently no one

thought an escort necessary."

"Was the ship hijacked?"

"We don't know, sir. We've been unable

to contact it by radio."

"How are we going to find out if the weapons

are still aboard?"

"Send marines aboard tonight to look."

"I don't think that ship is stranded in international

watersea"...the secretary of state said.

"Your department told us it wasea"...Totten shot

back.

"That was a first impression by junior staffers. Our

senior people demanded a closer look. We are just not

sure. The determination depends on where one draws

the line that defines the mouth of the bay. Reasonable people

can disagree."

Totten took a deep breath. "Mr.

President, we don't know what happened aboard

that ship. We don't know if the weapons are

aboard. If they have been removed, we need to learn

where they went. Now is not the time to split hairs

over the nuances of international law. Let's board

the ship and get some answers, then the lawyers can

argue to their hearts' content."

"That's the problem with you uniformed testosterone

typesea"...the secretary of state snarled. "You think

you can violate the law any time it suits your

purposes."

The president of the United States was a cautious

man by nature, a blow-dried

politician who had maneuvered with the wind at his

back all his life. His national security adviser

knew him well, General Totten thought, when he

said, "Preliminary indications are that the stranded ship

is

CUBA J87rter-than

in international waters, Mr. President. The

naval commander on the scene has the authority

to examine a wreck

in international waters if he feels it prudent to do

so. Let him make the decision and report back

what he finds."

"That's rightea"...the president said. "I think that is the

proper way for us to approach this."

"Will you pass that on to the battle group commander"..."...the

national security adviser asked General Totten.

The general reached for an encrypted telephone.

Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington went

aboard the V-22 parked at the head of the line on

the flight deck of USS

United States.

Marines filed aboard the second and third

airplane. Tonight the carrier was thirty miles

northeast of Cape Maisithe distance to the stranded

freighter was a bit over a hundred

miles.

Jake was more nervous than he had been in a long,

long time. Before he left the mission planning

spaces this evening, he looked again at the chart that

depicted the threat envelope of the two

surface-to-air missile sites on the Cuban

mainland just a few miles from the stranded freighter,

Nuestra Sefiora de Colon.

The freighter was well inside those envelopes, and the

Ospreys would be also.

Jake had had a long talk with the EA-6But

electronic warfare crews and the four FirstA-18

Hornets that would be over the Ospreys carrying

HARM'S. HARM stood for high-speed

antiradiation missile. Enemy radars were the

targets of HARM'S, which rode the beams right into the

dishes. HARM'S even had memories, so if an

enemy operator turned off his radar after a HARM

was launched, the missile would still fly to the memorized

location.

"If the Cubans turn on the SAM radars,

open fireea"...Jake told his guardian angels.

"Don't wait until their missiles are in the

air."

"Yes, sir."

Jake had heard nothing from Washington waffling on the

assertion that the

Colon

was in international waters, so

as far as he was concerned, that fact was a given. The

Cubans had no right to fire on ships or planes

in international waters. If they did, Jake

Grafton would shoot back. Of course, if the

Cubans shot first, they would probably kill a

planeload or two of Americans, Jake

Grafton included. The crews of the EA-6But

Prowlers and Hornets were well aware of that

reality.

As he sat in the Osprey Jake Grafton

wondered if the enlisted marines in the other two

planes understood the risks involved in this mission.

He suspected they didn't know, and in truth

probably didn't want to. Their job was to obey

their officers; if the officers led them into action,

fretting about the odds wasn't going to do any good at

all.

That thought led straight to another: Did he understand the

risks?

"You okay, Admiral?"

That was Toad.

Jake Grafton nodded, smiled. A friend like

Tarkingtoh was a rare thing indeed. He hadn't asked

Toad if he wanted to risk his life on this

mission; the commander would have been insulted if he had.

The warm noisy darkness inside the plane seemed

comforting, somehow, as if the plane were a loud, safe

womb. After takeoff Jake sat for five minutes

with his eyes closed, savoring the flying sensations,

recharging his batteries. Then he made his way

toward the cockpit and squatted behind the pilots,

both of whom were wearing night-vision goggles. From this

vantage point Jake could see the computer displays

on the instrument panel. The flight engineer handed him

a helmet, already plugged in, so that he could talk

to the pilots and listen to the radio.

He heard the Prowler and Hornets checking in, the

F-14's, the S-3 tankers.

He heard Rita call twenty miles to go to the

mission coordinator in the E-2 Hawkeye.

She had the Osprey flying at a thousand feet above

the water, inbound at 250 knots.

"Visibility is five or six milesea"...she

told Jake over the

intercom. "Some rain showers around. Wind out

of the west northwest."

"Okay."

"We'll do it like we plannedea"...she continued, making

sure Jake, the copilot, and her crew chief

all understood what was to happen. "I'll hover into the

wind, then back down toward the ship, put the ramp

over the fantail."

"Ten milesea"...the copilot sang out.

Jake took off the aircraft helmet and donned

a marine tactical helmet, which contained a small

radio that broadcast on one of four tactical

frequencies. Repeaters in the Ospreys picked

up the low-powered helmet transmissions and

rebroadcast them so that everyone on the tactical

net could hear, including the mission coordinator in

the E-2, the people aboard the carrier, and the pilots

of the airborne planes.

Jake pulled on a set of night-vision goggles

and looked forward, through the Ospfey windscreen. The

night was gone, banished. He could see the stranded

freighter, still several miles away, see the surf

breaking on the rocks, the containers stacked on

deck, the empty sea in all directions. He

looked toward the nearest land, an island just over

three miles away; he could just make out the

line of breaking surf.

The Osprey was slowing: Rita rotated the engine

nacelles toward the vertical position as she

transitioned from wing-borne cruising flight to pure

helicopter operation. Computers monitored her

control inputs and gradually increased the

effectiveness of the rotor swashplates as

flaperons, elevators and rudders lost their

effectiveness due to the decreasing airspeed. The

transition from wing-borne to rotor-borne flight was

smooth, seamless, a technological miracle, and

Jake Grafton appreciated it as such.

Jake Grafton kept his eyes on the ship. No

people in sight. The bow of the ship was on the rocks. The

ship had a small forecastle superstructure, with the

main superstructure and bridge on the stern of the

ship. The ship's cargo

was in holds amidships, with extra containers stacked

between the bridge and forecastle. The ship had two

large cranes, one forward, one aft. She had a

single stack, and probablygiven her sizeonly one

screw.

Jake could see that the containers on the deck were

jumbled about, several obviously open and empty.

Others, a whole bunch, seemed to be

missing.

Now Rita swung into the wind, away from the

Colon.

The ramp at the back of the aircraft was open, with

Toad and the crew chief waiting there. Jake

Grafton walked aft to join them.

The crew chief gave Rita directions on the

ICS, back fifty feet, down ten, as she

watched her progress on a small television

screen that had been rigged hi the cockpit for this

mission.

Lower, closer to the ship ... and the ramp touched the

deck.

"Go, go, goea"...the crew chief shouted.

Jake spoke into his voice-activated boom

mike: "Let's go!"

The fixed deck of the stranded freighter felt strange

after a half hour hi the moving Osprey: The wash

from the mighty, 38-foot rotors was a

mini-hurricane here on the fantail, a mixture

of charged air and sea spray, dirt, and trash from the

deck and containers.

Jake and Toad crouched on the deck as the

Osprey moved away. The ramp had been against the

deck for no more than fifteen seconds.

Jake spoke into his lip mike, made sure the

mission coordinator could hear him. Gripping an

M-16 in the ready position, Toad led them

forward along the main deck. Jake Grafton

carried a video camera, which was running, and two

35-mm cameras. The video and one of the still

cameras were loaded with infrared film, the other

35-mm contained regular film and was equipped with a

flash attachment.

First stop was the main deck, where he inspected the

containers mere. Many had doors hanging open, some still

had the doors closed, but all the containers were

empty. Although he wasn't sure how many containers

were supposed to be there, the area around the main hatches

was remarkably clear. The hatches themselves were not

properly installed. One hatch was ajar.

No people about. None. The ship seemed totally

deserted and firmly aground. Jake could feel no

motion.

He used a flashlight to look into the hold. This

section of the hold didn't seem to be full. Many

of the containers were open.

Filming with the video camera, pausing now and then

to shoot still photos, the two men searched

until they found a ladder that led down into the hold.

Toad waited by the hatchway, his M-16 at the

ready.

Jake went down the ladder into the dark bay.

He had his night-vision goggles off now; in total

darkness they were useless. He snapped on the

flashlight, looked around, fingered the pistol in the

holster on his hip.

This hold was half-empty, with the packing material that

had been wrapped around the warheads strewn everywhere.

The place was knee-deep in trash. The containers that

were there were obviously empty.

Jake didn't stay but a minute or so, then he

climbed back up the ladder.

"Let's check the bridgeea"...he said to Toad over

the tactical radio.

They went aft along the main deck and climbed an

outside ladder to the bridge, which stretched from one

side of the ship to the other.

"They've cleaned her outea"...Toad remarked over the

tac net.

"Yeahea"...Jake replied, and kept climbing.

On the bridge Jake again removed the nightjvision

goggles and used a flashlight. He wanted to see

whatever was there in natural light.

What he found were bloodstains. A lot of blood

had been spilled here on the bridge; pools of

congealed, sticky

black blood lay on the deck. People had walked in

it, tracking the stuff all over.

"Not everyone was on the payrollea"...Jake muttered,

and quickly completed his search. He aimed the video

camera at the stains, then snapped a couple

photos with the regular camera using the flash.

Toad used a flashlight to search for the log book and

ship's documents. "The safe is open and

emptyea"...he told Jake Grafton. He came

over to watch the admiral work the cameras.

"Where in hell are the warheads"..."...Toad asked

aloud.

"The Americans are aboard the

Colon,

Colonel."

The man shook Santana awake. He held a

candle, which flickered in the tropical breeze coming

through the screen.

Santana sat up and tossed the sheet aside.

He consulted his watch.

He got out of bed, walked out onto the porch of the

small house and searched the night sea with

binoculars. Nothing.

He lowered the binoculars, stood listening.

Yes, he could hear engine sounds, very faint... jet

engines, the whopping of rotors....

"How long have they been aboard?"

"I don't know, sir. With this wind it is hard

to hear helicopter noises. When I heard the

voices on the radio, I came to wake you."

"Admiral, look at this."...Toad came over to where

Jake was standing, showed him the screen of a small

battery-operated computer. "I'm picking up

radio transmissions, even when we are not using the

tactical net. Something on the ship is

broadcasting."

Jake Grafton pulled his mike down to his

lips. "Hawkeye, this is Cool Hand. Has

anyone been picking up radio transmissions from the

target?"

"Cool Hand, Hawkeye. They started about a

minute ago, sir, when you went up on the bridge.

We have them now."

"What kind of transmissions?"

"Amazingly, sir, I'm receiving clear channel

radio. I'm actually hearing you talk on

this other frequency."

"What the hell? ..."

Oh, sweet Jesus!

"This damned ship is wired to blow. The bastards are

listening to us right now. We gotta get offff"...With that

he gave Toad a push toward the door of the

bridge. Toad ran. Jake Grafton was right

behind him.

Colonel Santana couldn't see anything through the

binoculars, but he heard those American voices

coming through the radio speaker. The microphones were on

the bridge.

"Any time, Tomasea"...he said.

Tomas keyed the radio transmit button three

times. A flower of red and yellow fire blossomed

in the darkness.

Santana aimed the binoculars and focused them as the

last of the explosions faded. He could see the

flicker of flames as they spread aboard

Nuestra Sefiora de Colon,

These Americans! So predictable! Santana

chuckled as he watched.

"Into the oceanea"...Jake shouted.

Toad vaulted over the rail into the blackness. As

he fell he wondered if there were rocks

or salt water below.

Toad Tarkington and Jake Grafton were in

midair when the bridge exploded behind them. Jake

felt the thermal pulse and the first concussion.

Then the dark, cool water closed over his head and

he went completely under.

As he began to rise toward the surface, he felt

more explosions from inside the ship. The concussions

reached him through the water like spent punches from a

prizefighter.

STEPHEN COONTS

When he got his head above water, flames

illuminated the night.

Above the noise of the explosions and flames, he could

hear Tarkington cursing.

After Rita pulled them out of the ocean and flew them

back to the carrier, Toad Tarkington and Jake

Grafton were checked in sick bay, then they showered

and tried to snatch a few hours' sleep.

Toad gave up on sleeptoo much adrenaline.

He lay in his bunk thinking about leaping over the

bridge rail without knowing whether rocks or water

lay beneath, and he shivered. The shock of the impact with the

water had been almost a deliverance.

He turned on the light and looked at the photos

of Rita and Tyler he had taped to the bulkhead.

Really stupid, Toad-man, really stupid.

Grafton must have checked the location of the rocks,

knew where he could jump and where he couldn't, and you

never once thought to look.

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.

They closed the door behind them and climbed the totally

dark staircase, feeling their way. They ended up in

a stuffy, black attic. Chance used the

flashlight. Furniture, desks, chairs,

stacked everywhere. In the middle of the attic was another

stairway up.

The door to the roof was also locked, this time with a

padlock, which was on the interior side of the door.

"What if there is a padlock on the other

side"..."...Chance asked.

"Then we're screwed. Unless you want to kick this

thing down."

"No."

"Let's try to get this lock open, then the door."

"Okay."

The lock was rusty, corroded. After several

minutes" effort Carmellini admitted his defeat

and used a wire saw to cut through the metal loop of the

lock. That took two minutes of intense effort but

didn't make much noise, considering.

With the lock off and hasp pulled back, they pushed

at the door. It refused to open. With both men

heaving, the

door slowly opened with great resistance, and groaned

terribly.

"That'll wake the deadea"...Chance muttered, and wiped the

sweat from his face as Carmellini slipped out onto

the roof.

Chance followed along.

The metal roof sloped away steeply in several

different planes. Moving on hands and knees they

worked themselves over toward the edge that faced the science

building.

"Let me do thisea"...Carmellini whispered, and

extracted the rope from his backpack. "Get out of the

way, up by the door."

Chance went.

The glare of the city and the streetlights below

illuminated the roof quite well, too well in fact.

While it was easy to see where to walk, anyone below

who bothered to look could probably see the black

shapes silhouetted against the glare of the sky.

Chance huddled against the dormer that formed the staircase

up from the attic. He watched Carmellini on the

edge of the roof, shaking out the rope, checking the

grappling hook. Now he began to twirl the hook

above his head, letting out more and more line to make the

hook swing an ever-larger circle. Just as it seemed

the ckcle was impossibly wide, he cast the line

and hook across the chasm separating the buildings at a

metal vent sticking up out of the roof.

The hook made an audible metallic sound as it

hit the far roof, then it began sliding off.

Carmellini quickly pulled in line in huge coils,

but too late to stop the grappling hook from sliding

off the roof.

He kept pulling on the line. In seconds he

had the hook in his hand and bent down against the roof.

Someone was down below. Even back here Chance could hear

voices. He scanned the surrounding roofs, the

streets that he could see, the blank windows looking

at him from other buildings.

Minutes ticked by, the voices below

faded.

Now Carmellini was standing, swinging the rope and hook,

now casting it... and it caught! He tugged at it,

worked his way back up the roof to where Chance was

kneeling.

Carmellini put the disend of the rope around the dormer,

pulled it as taut as possible, then tied it off.

"Well, there is our way acrossea"...the younger man said.

"You want to go first, or should I?"

"Anchored solid, is it?"

"You bet."

"Age before beautyea"...Chance said, and tugged on leather

gloves, wrapped his hands around the rope. He worked

out hand over hand, then draped his lower legs over the

rope. His backpack dangled from his shoulders.

Hanging from the rope like this took a surprising amount

of physical strength. The rope sagged dangerously

with his weight, becoming a vee with him at the bottom,

which made it more difficult to move along it.

Gritting his teeth, trying to keep his breathing even,

William Henry Chance worked his way along the

rope, taking care not to look down. At one point

he knew he was over the chasm but it didn't

matter: if he slipped off the rope the fall would

kill him, whether he hit the roof and slid

off or missed it clean.

He kept going, doggedly, straining every muscle,

until he felt the bag dragging along the roof of the

science building. Only then did he unhook his

legs from the rope and let them down to the roof. Still

pulling on the rope, he heaved himself up by the vent and

grabbed it.

The grappling hook was holding by one tong. He

wrapped the rope around the vent and set the hook, then

tugged several times to make sure it would hold.

Wiping his forehead, he breathed heavily three or

four times. He had one hand on the rope, so he

felt the tension increase with Carmellini's weight.

He peered at the other

building. Carmellini came scurrying along the

rope like a goddamn chimpanzee.

The younger man was over the gap between the buildings when the

rope broke, apparently where it was anchored atop

the lecture hall. Carmellini's body fell

downward in an arc and disappeared from view. An

audible thud reached Chance as Carmellini's body

smacked against the side of the science building.

"Our Lady of Coldn

was under this storm system; out of sight of the

satellites passing over, for six

hours," Toad Tarkuigton explained to Jake

Grafton. They were bent over a table in Mission

Planning, studying satellite radar images.

"When next it reappeared, it was steaming for Bahia

de Nipe at twelve knots, yet its average

speed of advance while it was out of sight was two

knots."

"Two?"

'Two."...Toad showed him the positions and

measurements.

"So it was stopped somewhere."

"Or made a detour."

"What if the ship rendezvoused with another ship and the

warheads were transferred?"

"Possible, but if you look at these other ship

tracks, it doesn't seem very likely. All these

other tracks were going somewhere, with speed-of-advance

averages that seem plausible."

"Okay. What if the ship stopped and the crew

dumped some of the weapons in the water? Maybe all

of them. Dumped them in shallow water for someone

to pick up later. How deep is the water in that

area?"

"That area is the Bahamas, Admiral. Pretty

shallow in a lot of places in there."

"Have NSA put that area under intense surveillance.

Have them study every satellite image since that storm

passed. If those warheads were dumped overboard from the

Colon,

someone is going to come along to pick them up.

We have to get there before that somebody gets them

aboard."

"Yes, sir."

"Ask Atlantic Fleet to get a P-3 out

to that area as soon as possible, have the crew search for

anchored or stationary ships. Any ships not actually

under way. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Jake Grafton rubbed his forehead, trying

to decide if there was anything else he should be doing.

"Uh, Admiral..."...Toad began, his voice

low. "I want to thank you for saving my assets

last night. I about had a heart attack after we

jumped over that rail, everything behind us blowing up,

wondering if we were going to go into the water or

splatter ourselves on a rock pile. That was truly

a religious experience."

A wry grin crossed Jake Grafton's face.

"Wish I had paid more attention to where those rocks were

before crunch time arrived. Talk about jumping

out of the frying pan into the fire! For a few seconds

mere I thought we had had the stroke."

"You didn't know"..."...Toad was aghast.

"What say we don't mention this to Rita or

Callie"..."...Jake said, and walked away. He had

another meeting to attend.

William Henry Chance grabbed the rope, which

extended over the side on the science building roof

into the darkness. The rope was still taut. Tommy

Carmellini must be hanging on the end of it!

Chance braced himself and began pulling, hand over hand,

and almost ruptured himself.

He got no more than six feet of rope up when

he realized he wasn't in the right position. Moving

carefully, he braced himself against the vent pipe and

got the rope over his shoulders. Now he used his

whole body to help raise it.

Two more feet. , Four.

A dark spot, a head, coining above the eave,

struggling to climb.

Chance held the rope steady as Carmellini heaved

himself over the edge of the roof and began crawling up the

slope, still holding onto the rope.

"Man, I thought I had bit the big

oneea"...Carmellini said between gasps. Leaning

against the chimney, Chance blew equally hard.

"I'm getting too old for this shitea"...Carmellini

muttered.

"Next time get a desk job."

"Why in hell do you think I went to law school?"

Chance coiled the rope and inspected it. It had

frayed through where it was wrapped around the dormer on the

other building. He showed the place to Carmellini,

then put the rope in his knapsack.

"Let's go."

Carmellini used a glass cutter on a pane of a

dormer window, then they went in.

Chance took a chance and used the flashlight. This

attic was stacked with laboratory equipment:

dishes, warmers, mixing units, microscopes, a

spectrometer, a bunch of equipment large and

small that he couldn't identify.

"Let's put on our masksea"...Chance said, "just

in

case."

They donned the gas masks, made sure the filter

elements were on tight. The mask could provide

only filtered air: it had an inhalation and

exhalation valve and a black faceplate with two

large clear lens to see through. The mask was

attached to a hood that went over the head and shoulders

of the user. Pull strings sealed the hood so air could

not get in around the user's neck. When they had the

mask on, both men removed the leather gloves they

had been wearing and donned a pair of latex

gloves. They stuffed their trousers inside their

socks.

With Carmellini in the lead, the two men stealthily

descended the stairs.

STEPHEN COONTS

The laboratory was in the basement, so Chance and

Carmellini had to pass through the main floor to get

there.

The elevator would be the best way from the top of the

building to the bottom, but it might be monitored from

the guards" station at the main entrance. Certainly it

should be: nothing could be simpler than to have a warning

light come on when the electric motor that ran the

elevator engaged. Chance and Carmellini took the

stairs.

Carmellini was leading the way now. Using'the

flashlight, he examined the door to the staircase for

alarms, then opened the door a crack and examined the

stairwell. Fortunately the stairwell was lit.

If this building were hi the States it would be

festooned with infrared sensors, motion detectors,

microphones, and remote cameras controlled from a

central station. However, this was Cubit

At each landing, Carmellini extended a small

periscope and looked around the corner.

On the second floor his inspection of the stairs

leading down revealed a camera mounted on a wall

above the landing, focused on the door in from the main

floor. There was probably a camera mounted above the

door to the main floor, a camera that looked back

toward this camera.

Carmellini studied the camera through the periscope,

twisted the magnification to the maximum and

refocused. He kept the instrument steady by bracing

himself against the wall.

The security camera was fifteen or twenty years

old if it was a day. No doubt there were ten or

twelve cameras on a sequential switch, so the

video from each one was shown in turn on a monitor

at the guard's station. The guard was probably reading

something, eating, talking to another guard, if he was

paying any attention at all.

From his backpack Carmellini removed a strobe

unit and battery. He plugged the thing together,

switched on the battery, and waited for the

capacitor to charge. The bulb had a set of

silver metal feathers around it so that the light could be

focused. Carmellini tightened the feathers around the

bulb as much as they would go. When the capacitor's

green light came on, he eased the light around the

comer, exposing his head for the first time. One quick squint

to line up the light, then holding the thing tightly against

the wall to steady it, he retracted his head, closed

his eyes and buried his head in the crook of his arm.

William Henry Chance did likewise. The

short, intense burst of light should burn out the

camera's light-level sensor, rendering it

inoperative.

The flash was so bright Carmellini saw it through his

closed eyelids.

The two men slipped down the stairs. Standing just under

the camera that had just been disabled, Carmellini used the

periscope again. Yes. Another camera, just over the

door to the main floor.

He waited ten more seconds for the capacitor

to fully charge, then stuck it around the corner and

flashed the light.

"Let's

go!"

With Chance behind him, Tommy Carmellini

went down the stairs to the main floor and used his

periscope to examine the landing on the stairs leading

down. Nothing.

On down to the landing, peeking around the corner.

"Motion detectorea"...he whispered to Chance.

Chance was breathing heavily inside the mask. It

wasn't the exertion, he decided, but the tension. He

must be audible at fifty paces. He tried

to ignore the sound of his own rasping and listen.

were the guards coming? Two cameras were down had they

noticed? Would they come to inspect the things?

Or were the guards congregating right now, calling in

troops?

"Microwave or infrared"..."...Chance asked, referring

to the motion detector.

"One of each."

"Beautiful."

"Probably two independent systems."

"Oh, Christ!"

"That's a poor way to install them, actually. This

is old

technology,

Mission Impossible

stuff. We'll just walk by the infrared

detectorsall this clothing will help shield

our body heat. If we move right along we should be

okay."

"And the microwave system?"

Carmellini had already removed a device the size

of a portable CD player from his backpack.

"Jammerea"...he said, and examined the controls.

He turned it on and, holding it in front of him,

walked down to the motion detectors. The one on the

left was the microwave one, with a coaxial cable

leading away from it. Carmellini pulled the cable an

inch or so away from the wall and wedged the jammer into that

space.

"Come onea"...he whispered, and opened the door into the

basement.

The two men found themselves in a hallway.

Directly over-their head was a camera that pointed the

length of the hall, covering the door halfway down that

must lead into the lab.

Carmellini took a small battery-powered

camcorder from Chance's backpack. He held it

under the security camera for about a minute, filming the

view down the hallway, then pushed the play

button. The device now replayed the same scene

on a continuous loop, and would do so until the

batteries were exhausted. He slid a

collar around the coaxial cable leading from the camera,

tightened it, then used a pair of wire cutters

to slice the coax away from the security camera.

The door into the lab had an alarm on it, one mounted

high.

"The alarm rings if the circuit is

brokenea"...Carmellini whispered. "It's designed

to prevent unauthorized exit from the lab, not entry.

Won't take a minute."

He worked swiftly with a penknife and length of

wire. By wiring around the contact on the door and

jamb, he made the contact impossible to break.

Sixty seconds later he gingerly tried the

door. Reached for the handle and

Locked!

Now to work with the picks.

"They locked an emergency exit"..."...Chance demanded.

"Yeah. Real bastards, huh?"

Tommy Carmellini knew his business. When the

lock clicked, he put his picks back in his

knapsack, pulled the knapsack into position, and

palmed his pistol.

"You ready?"

"Yeah."

Carmellini eased the door open, looked

quickly each way with just one eye around the jamb.

The door opened into a well-lit foyer. The entire

opposite wall of the room was made of thick

glass, which formed a wall of a large,

well-equipped laboratory. No people in sight.

And no security cameras or motion detectors.

Both men came in, pistols in their hands and pointed

at the floor. Chance pulled the ddor shut behind them.

They knelt by the long window and with just their heads sticking

up, surveyed the scene.

Row after row of culture trays, units for mixing

chemicals, deep sinks, storage cabinets, big

sterilizing units, stainless steel containers by the

dozen, analysis equipment, retorts,

microscopes ...

"Holy damnea"...Carmellini said softly. "They are

sure as hell growing something in there."

"Somethingea"...Chance agreed.

On the end of the room to their left was a large air

lock.

"That's the way in."

"Do we have to go in?"

"We need samples from those culture trays."

Chance led the way. He walked, holding the pistol

down by his right thigh.

Around the corner slowly, looking first.

There were actually two air locks. After they went

through the first one, they found themselves in a dressing room

with a variety of white one-piece coveralls hanging

on nails. Each man donned one, pulling it on

over his

STEPHEN COONTS

clothes, then zipping it tightly, fastening the cuffs with

Velcro strips. Gas masks were there too, but they

were already wearing masks.

The second lock was equipped with a large vacuum

machine which suctioned dust and microorganisms from the

white coveralls.

They opened the door to the lab and stepped inside.

"The culture traysea"...Chance said, and led the way.

From his backpack he took syringes, quickly

screwed on needles.

The glass trays sat on mobile racks, three

dozen to a rack. They were readily transparent, so

he could look inside, see the bacteria growing on

the food mix at the bottom of the tray.

He selected a rack of trays, pulled one

tray from the rack and laid it on the marble-topped

counter nearby. He opened it. Used a syringe.

With the syringe about half-full, he

unscrewed the needle, deposited the syringe in a

plastic freezer bag and sealed it.

Meanwhile Carmellini had been exploring. As

Chance sealed up his second sample from this rack of

trays, Carmellini came back, motioning with his

hand. "Better come look. Looks like they are growing

several kinds of cultures."

The second kind looked similar to the first, but the

organisms were of. a slightly different color.

Chance selected a tray, took a sample, then

replaced the tray on the rack, as he had the first

one.

He was finishing his second sample from this batch when,

out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carmellini

motion for him to get down.

He dropped to a sitting position, finished sealing the

syringe bag.

He put the samples into his knapsack, reached

up on the countertop for his pistol.

Carmellini was creeping along below the counter with his

pistol in his hand.

Someone was in the air lock. By looking down the

aisle

between the counters Chance could just see the top of his head as

he pulled on the gas mask in the dressing

room.

Whoever it was was coming in.

Carmellini looked at Chance, lifted his hands in a

query: Now what?

Chance made a downward motion. Maybe this person

would just come in, get something, then leave.

It would be impossible, he decided, to sneak out

while the person was in the lab. Although the lab was

large, at least a hundred feet long, anyone in

the air locks could be seen from anywhere in the lab

unless the viewer was behind a piece of large

equipment.

Shit!

Well, the Cubans were about to discover that their lab was

no longer a secret. That was not a disaster;

unfortunate, perhaps. Perhaps not.

The person coming in wore a complete protection

suit and mask. Not a square inch of skin was

exposed.

Large for a woman. A man, probably. Almost

six feet. Hard to tell body weight under a bag

suit like that, but at least 180 pounds.

He checked the safety on the pistol. On. With his

thumb he moved it to the off position, checked it

visually.

Now the person was coming out of the air lock, walking

purposefully down the aisle between the counters and

trays of cultures.

William Henry Chance stood up, pointed the

pistol straight in the face of the masked person

walking toward him.

The man froze. If it was a man. Stopped dead

and slowly raised his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye Chance saw Tommy

Carmellini moving toward the Cuban.

"Find something to tie him withea"...he said loudly, hoping

Carmellini would understand his muffled voice.

Carmellini seemed to. He held up a roll of

duct tape. He

moved toward the man, who turned his head so that he

could get a good look at Carmellini.

Garmellini had his pistol in his hand. His holster was

under the white coverall, as was Chance's, so both men

had carried their pistols with them in their hands.

Now Carmellini placed the pistol on a counter,

well out of the man's reach. He walked behind him.

The man pushed backward, slamming Carmellini

against a counter.

Damnation! Chance couldn't shoot for fear of hitting

Carmellini. As if the .22-caliber

bullets in the Ruger would drop a big man at this

distance.

Chance walked around the counter, up the aisle, intending

to shoot the Cuban in the head from as close as he could

get.

Carmellini kicked violently and the Cuban went

flying back into a rack of culture trays.

Three or four of the trays fell from the rack and

shattered on the floor.

The man launched himself at Carmellini, who ducked

under a right cross. The man kept right on going,

heading for the pistol lying on the counter.

Carmellini caught him by the back of his coverall and

swung him bodily around. With a mighty punch he

sent the man reeling backward, straight into the rack

of culture trays he had already bit. The man

slipped, fell amid the broken glass.

Without sights, wearing the silencer, the Ruger was hard

to aim. Chance squeezed off a round anyway. Where

the bullet went he never knew.

Before he could fire again the man screamed in agony.

All his muscles went rigid. He bent over

backward, screaming in a high-pitched wail.

"Let's goff"...Carmellini yelled.

The man got control of an arm. He

tore at his mask, trying to get it off, all the

while screaming and thrashing around on the floor amid

the broken glass.

"Holy shit."

The stricken man finally just ran out of air. All

motion stopped. He was bent over backward, almost

double, his head within a few inches of his heels.

Careful not to step on the broken glass, Chance bent

over the man. He carefully took off the gas

mask.

Eyes rolled back in his head, every muscle taut

in a fierce rigor, the man seemed almost frozen.

"He must have torn his suitea"...Chance muttered to himself.

The Cubans must have vaccinated everyone with access.

Why didn't the vaccination protect him?

"Let's get our asses through the air lock and get

the fuck outta hereea"...Carmellini said loudly.

They stood in the vacuum room for the longest time,

neither man willing to be the first to leave.

"We must goea"...Carmellini said at last, after almost

ten minutes of suction, after using a high-pressure

jet of air from a hose to blast every nook and fold

of the coverall.

They hung the coveralls on the nails. Stood in

the next air lock, were vacuumed again, then

they were out, still wearing their gas masks.

"We might kill everyone in Havanaea"...Chance said.

"We'll never know itea"...Carmellini shot back.

"We'll be in hell before they are."

"Can't figure out why the vaccination didn't

protect him."

"Later. How the hell are we going to get out of

here?"-

"The easiest way is to just walk out the front

door, shoot both the guards, and walk around the

corner to the van."

"They'll see us going up the stairs."

"The elevator. We'rl use the elevator.

Keep the pistols where they can't see them."

"You are fucking-A crazy, man. One crazy

motherfucker."

The elevator was right there with the door open. Chance

walked in. When Carmellini was aboard, he pushed

the button to take it up.

With their pistols down by their legs, they walked out

of the elevator, straight for the guard shack at the

front door.

Only one man was there, reading something. He looked

up as they approached. Now he stood.

"Que

pasa"..."...he began, and Chance shot him in the forehead from

six feet away.

The guard toppled over backward.

Chance and Carmellini kept going, out the door at a

walking pace, down the sidewalk under the

streetlights looking like two refugees from a flying

saucer, and around the corner. They jerked open the rear

door of the van and jumped in.

Chance ripped off the mask.

"Let's get the hell outta hereea"...he roared at the

driver, who was as surprised at their sudden

appearance as the guard had been. "Drive, damn

it, drive!"

As the van jostled and swayed through the city streets,

they sat in the back staring at each other, waiting for the

disease to hammer them.

Waited, and waited, and waited...

Six hours after William Henry Chance and

Tommy Carmellini walked out of the University of

Havana science building, Dr. Bouchard was on his

way to Washington via Mexico City with two of the

culture samples in his diplomatic pouch.

Three hours later one of the lowest-ranking mission

employees with diplomatic status left on a

plane to Freeport, there to transfer to a

flight to Miami, and then on to Washington. This

employee carried the other two samples in her

diplomatic pouch.

Chance and Carmellini were dropped at their hotel after

changing clothes in the van. "Burn those clothes

immediately, and don't touch them with your bare handsea"...Chance

told the driver.

At the hotel both men went straight to their rooms,

stripped, and stood in the shower for as long as they could

stand it.

Standing under the shower head Chance waited for the first

symptom to announce its arrival. Every now and then

he shuddered, despite the hot water, as cold

chills ran up and down his spine. He had a raging

headache. When he got out of the shower he toweled himself

dry, got in bed and arranged a wet, cool

washcloth across his forehead.

The lab worker writhing on the floor, the startled

face of the guard the instant before he died^the scenes

played over and over in his mind. The death throes of the

lab worker were bad enough, but the face of the guard, when

he saw the pistol rising, saw the silencer, knew

Chance was going to shoot:

that

face Chance would carry to his grave.

He shouldn't have had to kill the guard. The truth of the

matter was that he panicked when the lab worker died

horribly; he stood in the air locks thinking he

or Carmellini would be next, any second. He

had wanted out of that building so badly he had thrown

caution to the wind and bolted blindly for the front door.

It was a miracle that there weren't two or three

guards standing by the main entrance, that they didn't have

guns out as the two figures from biological hell

stepped out of the elevator.

Ah, the stink of Lady Luck. greater-than

Lying there in the darkness he thought about

microorganisms, wondered what was in the sample

vials, wondered why the lab worker, who must have been

immunized, died such a painful, horrible death.

One thing was certain: The Cubans were well on their

way to having biological weapons. And the only

conceivable target was the United States.

With his head pounding, unable to sleep, he turned on

his small computer and typed an E-mail reporting

the intrusion and his findings. After he encrypted the

message, he used the telephone on the desk

to get on the Web and fire the message

into cyberspace.

Then he went back to bed, and finally

to sleep.

The American stood amid the shards of glass

looking at the body of the lab worker. He wore a

protective garment that covered him head to toe and a

mask that filtered the air he breathed. He looked

at everything, taking his tune, then exited the

laboratory through the air lock.

Alejo Vargas was waiting for him. He said nothing,

merely waited for the American to talk.

"The virus has apparently mutatedea"...the

American said finally. "I thought the strain was stable,

but..."...He gave the tiniest shrug.

"Mutated?". "Possibly."

"Come now, Professor. I have not asked for

scientific proof. Tell me what you think."

"A mutation. A few days with the electron

microscope would give us some clues. We need

to do more cultures to be sure. It would help if I

could dissect the dead man, see how the disease affected

him."

"Like you did the others?"

"You told me they were killers, condemned men. We

had to

knowl"

"What if the disease gets away from you at

the morgue? What if it spreads to the general

population?"

"With the proper precautions the danger is

minuscule. Man, the advancement of human knowledge

requires"

"Noea"...Vargas said. He gestured to the lab. "If

that gets away from us, for whatever reason, there won't

be a human left alive on this island."

"Then don't ask me for opinionsea"...the professor

snapped. "You can guess as well as I."

Alejo Vargas's eyes narrowed to slits. His

voice was cold with fury. "I wanted to use an

anthrax agent, but no, you insisted on

poliomyelitis. Now you tell me it mutated, as

I feared it might."

The damned fool, the American thought. Of course

he had insisted on a virusfor Christ's sake,

bis life work was studying viruses, not bacteria.

Vargas continued, pronouncing the sentence: "We

spent all this money, built the warheads, installed

them, and we took huge risks to do it Don't

talk to me of acceptable

risks."

The professor was not the type to calmly submit

to lectures from his intellectual

inferiors. "Don't get wrathy with me, Vargas.

You're a stupid, ignorant thug. I didn't

design the universe and I can't take

responsibility for it. I merely try to understand,

to learn, to increase the store of man's knowledge."

The American lost his temper at that point and

splut-

tered, "Biology isn't engineering, goddammit!

Sometimes two plus two equals five."

Vargas turned his back on the professor. He

stared into the lab, which appeared cold and stark under the

lights yet was full of poisonous life.

"I don't understand what happened in thereea"...the

American said. "He didn't just fall. It

looks like there was a struggle."

"Someone broke hiea"...Vargas said.

The professor was horrified. "Broke in?

Past the guards? Who would be so foolish?"

"Someone who wanted to see what was in thereea"...Vargas

said, and turned to look at the other man's face.

A note of satisfaction crept into, his voice

as he added, "Probably Americans, Perhaps

C1A."

The professor looked startled, as if the

possibility had not crossed his mind.

"Come, come, Professor, don't tell me you

thought your work here hi Cuba would remain a secret

forever."

"I am a scientistea"...the American said. "Science

is my life."

Vargas snorted derisively. "Your lifeff"...he

said softly, contemptuously.

The professor lost it. "Foolff"...he shouted.

"Idiot! You sit in this Third World cesspool and

think this crap matters

fooir

"Perhapsea"...Vargas said coldly. He was used

to Professor Svenson, an unrepentant

intellectual snob, the very worst kind, and

American to boot. "I would like to stay and trade

curses with you today but there is no time. The workers are

waiting outside. You are going to show them how to clean

up the lab, then you will determine exactly what

happened to the viruses. You will write down all that

must be done to check the warheads. You will have the report

handdelivered to me. If you fail to do exactly what

J say, you will go into the crematorium with the lab

worker. Do you understand me, Professor?"

"You can't threaten me. I'm"

Alejo Vargas flicked his fingers across the

professor's cheek, merely a sting. He stared

into his eyes. "You suffer from a regrettable

delusion that you are irreplaceablest can cure that. If

you wish, you can go to the crematorium right now. Two

body bags are not much more trouble than one."

,

When Vargas left, Olaf Svenson sat and hid

his face in his hands.

He had never thought past the scientific problems to the

ones he now faced. Oh, he should have, of course:

he knew that Vargas intended to put the virus

into warheads. He shut his mind to the horrorhe

wanted to see if the mutation could be controlled. No,

he wanted to see if

he

could control the mutation of the viruses. The

scientific challenges consumed him. Vargas had the

money and the facilities Olaf Svenson wanted

to do the research.

He was going to have to get out of Cuba, and as soon as

possible. The university thought he was in

Europethat was where he would go. The CIA

probably had no evidence, or not enough to prosecute

him in an American court. If he went to the

airport and took a plane now they

probably would never get enoughVargas certainly

wasn't going to be a willing witness.

He waited a few minutes, long enough for Vargas

to clear off upstairs, then stood and took a last

fleeting look at the lab. With a sigh he turned his

back on what might have been and walked to the

elevator. In the lobby he took the time to give

detailed instructions to the workers who would clean up the

lab, answered the foreman's questions, then watched as they

boarded the elevator. When the elevator door

closed behind the workers, Professor Svenson nodded

to the guards at the entrance of the building, set off

down the street and never looked back.

The P-3 Orion antisubmarine patrol

plane flew over a sparkling- sea. The morning

cumulus clouds would form in the

STEPHEN COONTS

trade winds in a few hours, but right now the sky was

empty except for wisps of high stratus.

The glory of the morning held no interest for the

P-3's crew, which was examining an old freighter

anchored in the lee of an l-shaped cay. A few

palm trees and some thick brush covered the

backbone of the little island, which had wide, white,

empty beaches on all sides.

"Whaddya think"..."...the pilot asked his copilot and the

TACCO, the tactical coordinator, who was standing

behind the center console.

"Go lower and we'll get picturesea"...the TACCO

suggested. He passed a video camera to the

copilot.

The pilot retarded the throttles and brought the

plane around in a wide, sweeping turn to pass

down the side of the freighter at an altitude of

about two hundred feet. The copilot kept the

video camera on the freighter, which was fairly

small, about ten thousand tons, with peeling paint and a

rusty waterline. A few sailors could be seen on

deck, but no flags were visible.

"I'll get on the hornea"...the TACCO told the

pilot, "see if the folks in Norfolk can

identify that ship. But first let's fly over the

ship, get the planform from directly overhead."

The TACCO knew that the computer sorted ship

images by silhouettes and planforms, so having both

views would speed up the identification process.

Professor Olaf Svenson was standing in line at

Havana airport to buy a ticket to Mexico

City when he saw Colonel Santana arrive out

front in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

Through the giant windows he could clearly see

Santana get out of the car, see the uniformed

security guards salute, see the plainclothes

security men with Santana move tourists out of the

way.

Svenson turned and rushed away in the other

direction. He dove into the first men's room he

saw and took refuge in an empty stall.

Was Santana after him?

The acrid smell of a public rest room filled

his nostrils, permeated his clothing, made him feel

unclean. He sat listening to the sounds: the door

opening and closing as men came and went, feet

scraping, water running, piss tinkling into urinals,

muttered comments. Sweat trickled down his neck,

soaking his shirt.

Slam!

Someone aggressively pushed the rest room door

open until it smashed against the wall.

The minutes crawled.

Santana was an animal, Svenson thought, a

sadist, a foul, filthy creature who loved to see

fellow human beings in pain. Svenson had seen it

in his eyes. Even the smallest of bad tidings was

delivered with a malicious gleam. Svenson

suspected that as a boy Santana had enjoyed

torturing pets.

What would Santana do to an overweight,

middle-aged scientist from Colorado who tried

to escape the country?

The door slammed into the wall again, and Svenson

jumped.

Torture? Of course. Santana would want

to inflict pain. Svenson felt his bowels get

watery as he thought about the pain that Santana could

dish out.

Every sound caused him to move, to jump.

He consulted his watch again. Just a few minutes had

passed.

O God, if you really exist, have mercy on me!

Don't let Santana find me. Please!

Home. He wanted to go home so badly. To his

apartment and cats and flowers in planters. To his

neat, safe little haven, where he could shut out the evil

of the world.

Someone slapped the side of the stall, said something

unintelligible in Spanish. Probably wanted

him to hurry up, to get out and let the next man

in.

Svenson made a retching sound. And almost

lost his breakfast.

He tried retching audibly again, less forcefully.

The person standing beside the stall walked away, the

door to the rest room opened and closed.

Where was Santana?

Maybe he wasn't coining. Surely by now if he

were searching the terminal he would have looked into this

restroom.

Coukfit be?

Or perhaps Santana was standing outside, waiting for

him to come out, for the sheer joy of dashing his hopes when

he thought the coast was clear. Santana would do a thing

like that, Svenson told himself now.

He felt so dirty, so wretched. He wiped at

the sheen of sweat on his face, wiped his hands on his

trousers.

He watched the minute hand of his watch, watched it

slowly circle the dial, counted the seconds as it

moved along so effortlessly.

With every passing minute that Santana didn't come he

felt better. Yes. Perhaps he wasn't looking.

He must not be. If he were looking he would have been

hi this restroom, would have opened the door, would have

jerked him from the stall and arrested him and put the cuffs

on him and dragged him across the terminal and

thrown him into a police car.

But Santana didn't come.

After an hour of waiting, Olaf Svenson began

thinking about how he was going to get out of the country. He

needed another passport. If he used his own, the

security people might not let him through the immigration

checkpoint.

He pulled up his pants, washed his hands

thoroughly, and went out into the main hall of the terminal.

Keeping an eye out for Santana, he went to the

ticket desk for Mexicana Airlines and stood

where he could watch the agent When handed a passport,

the man glanced up, comparing the face to the photo. Just

a glance, but a glance would be enough. Using a stolen

passport with a photo that didn't match his face was

too much of a risk. Svenson knew he would have

to use his own, dangerous though it would be.

Screwing up his courage, Olaf Svenson got in

line.

"Ciudad Mejico, par favor."

He handed the passport to the agent, who glanced

into his face, then handed the passport back.

An hour later Svenson went through the immigration

line. The uniformed official didn't look up,

merely compared the passport to a typed list

that lay on his desk, then passed it back. He

did not stamp the document.

Olaf Svenson took a seat in the waiting area and

used a filthy handkerchief to wipe perspiration from his

forehead.

A reprieve. The powers that rule the universe had

granted him a reprieve.

He would have liked to have had the opportunity to study the

latest viral mutation, but the risk was just too great.

A lost opportunity, he concluded. Oh, too

bad, too bad.

When the plane from Madrid touched down at

Havana airport with Maximo Sedano aboard,

Colonel Santana and two plainclothes secret

police officers were there to meet him. They stood beside

Maximo while he waited for his luggage, then the

two junior men carried it to the car while Maximo

walked beside Santana.

Colonel Santana said nothing to the finance minister,

other than to say Alejo Vargas wanted to see

him, then he let the bastard stew. He had learned

years ago that silence was a very effective weapon,

one that cost nothing and caused grievous wounds in a

guilty soul. All men are guilty, Santana

believed, of secret sins if nothing

else, and if left to suffer in silence will usually

convince themselves that the authorities know everything. After

a long enough silence, often all that remains to do is

take down the confession and obtain a signature.

One of his troops drove while Santana rode

in the back of the car with his charge. Not a word was uttered

the whole trip.

Maximo seemed to be holding up fairly well,

Santana thought, not sweating too much, retaining most

of his color,

breathing under control. The colonel smiled

broadly, a smile that grew even wider- when he

saw from the corner of his eye that Maximo Sedano

had noticed it.

Ah, yes. Silence. And terror.

The car drove straight into the basement of the Ministry

of Interior, where Maximo Sedano was hustled to a

subterranean interrogation room.

"I demand to see Vargasea"...Maximo said hotly

when they shoved him into a chair and slammed the door

shut.

"You demand"..."...asked Santana softly, leaning forward

until his face was only inches from Maximo. "You

are in no position to demand. You may ask humbly,

request, you may even pray, but you don't

demand. You have no right to demand anything."

Santana seated himself behind the desk, across from

Maximo. He took out the interrogation form, filled

out the blanks on the top of the sheet, then laid it

on the scarred wood in front of him.

"Whereea"...Santana asked, "is the money?"

Maximo Sedano inhaled through his nose. He

smelled dampness, urine, something rotting, meat or

vegetable perhaps ... and something cold and slimy and

evil. It was here, all around him, in this roomthe very

stones reeked of it. Before Castro the secret

police belonged to Fulgencio Batista, and before him

Geraldo Machado, and so on, back for hundreds

of years. This was a secret room that never saw the

light, where justice did not exist, where force and

venality and self-interest ruled. Here shadow men

without conscience or scruple wrestled with the enemies

of the dictator. The room reeked of fear and

blood, torture and maiming, pain and death.

Maximo pushed the images aside. With a tenuous

composure, carefully, completely, honestly, he

explained about the accounts and the German and the people at the

bank. He related what they said to the best of his

memory. He told about the ice pick and the men's

room, everything,

CUBA

withholding only his intention of transferring the money

to his own accounts.

Santana had questions, of course, made him repeat

most of it two or three times. When the colonel

had it all written down, Maximo signed the

statement.

"Where are the transfer cards"..."...Santana asked.

"In Switzerland. I left them at the bank."

"Why?"

"If there has been some mistake, if the money was

stolen by someone at the bank, then the banks have

valid, legal transfer orders they must honor.

They must send the money to the Bank of Cuba."

"So where is the money?"

"It is not in those accounts, obviously. I think the

money has been stolen."

For the first time, Santana was openly skeptical.

"By whom?"

"By someone who had access to the account numbers.

El Presidente

insisted on keeping a record of them in his office.

I would look there first."

"Why not your office? Is it not possible

one of your aides learned the numbers, passed them

to someone

who7"

"All the numbers of the government's foreign accounts,

including the accounts controlled exclusively by

el Presidente,

are kept in a safe in my office under my

exclusive control. None of my staff has

accessonly me."

Again Santana smiled. "You realize, of course,

that you are convicting yourself with your own mouth?"

Maximo threw up his hands. "I tell you this,

Santana. I do not have the money. If I had

fifty-four million dollars I would not have taken

the plane back to Cuba. I would not be sitting in this

shithole talking to a shithead like you."

Santana ignored the insult and jotted a few more

lines on his report. Personally he believed

Maximoif the man had the money he would have run like

a rabbitbut to say so would give Maximo too much

leverage. And Maximo

said that he killed a man with an ice pick, which

certainly seemed out of character. Santana raised an

eyebrow as he thought about Rail. Maximo Sedano

killing Railwell, the world is full of

unexpected things.

He left Maximo Sedano sitting in the chair in

the niterrogation room while he went to find

Vargas. The minister was in his office listening to a

report of the laboratory burglary from one of the

senior colonels, who had just returned from the

university.

Santana knew nothing of the burglary, had not been

informed before he went to the airport. He stood

listening, asked no questions, waited for Alejo

Vargas.

An hour passed before Vargas was ready to talk about

Maximo. "He is downstairs in an interrogation

roomea"...Santana said. "Here is his statement."...He

passed it across. Vargas read it in silence.

"The money is not hi the accountsea"...Vargas said

finally.

"So he says."

"And you think he is telling the truth?"

"Sir, I don't think Maximo Sedano has

what it takes to steal that kind of money and come back

here to face you. He knew he would be met at the

airport. He was expecting it."

Vargas said nothing, merely blinked.

"Actually, his suggestion about the account

numbers at the president's residence is a good

one. If there was a leak, it was probably there.

Fidel probably left the book lying aroundhe had

no organizational sense."

"And?"

"I know of no one in Cuba with the computer expertise

to get into the Swiss banks electronically and steal

that money, but there are plenty of people in America who

could. A lot of them work for the American government."

"People were stealing money from banks long before computers were

inventedea"...Vargas objected. "Anybody could have

bribed a bank officer and stolen that money. The

Yanquis are the most likely suspects,

however."

Vargas well knew that everything that went wrong south

of Key West was not the fault of the United States

government, but he was too old a dog to think that the people

who ran the CIA were incompetent dullards too

busy to give Cuba a thought.

"The Americans say that shit happens."

"They often make it happenea"...Vargas agreed,

and stood up. "Let us talk to Maximo. Perhaps

we can save a soul from hell."

Going down the stairs Vargas said to Santana,

"Maximo has been plotting to get himself

elected president when Castro passes. Today would

be a good time to let him know that such a course is

futile."

"Yes, sir."

"Some pain, I think. Nothing permanent, nothing

lifethreatening. We will need his expertise in finance

later on."

"Yes, sir."

A petty officer came to find Jake

Grafton. The sailor led the admiral to the Air

Intelligence spaces, where he found Toad and the

AI'S gathered around a television monitor.

"A P-3 took this sequence a few hours

agoea"...Toad told the admiral, "in the

Bahamas. It's an anchored North Korean

freighter. The P-3 is going to fly directly

overhead here in a minute and get a shot looking

straight down. We'll freeze the video there."

The perspective changed as the plane came across

the top of the ship. The clear blue water seemed

to disappear, leaving the ship suspended above the yellow

sandy bottom. Just before the P-3 crossed above the

ship, Toad froze the picture.

He stepped forward, pointing to dark shapes resting

on the sand under the freighter. "I think

we've found the rest of the stolen warheadsea"...he said.

'The people on the

Coldn

dumped them here in the ocean for the North Koreans

to pick up later."

Jake stepped forward, studied the picture on the

televi-

sion screen. "Can this picture be computer

enhanced?""...They are working on that hi Norfolk right

now.""...How certain are they about the identification of the

ship?"

"Very sure. Undoubtedly North Korean."

When the National Security Council met to be

briefed about developments in Cuba, the

president's mood was even uglier than it had been

a few days before. He listened with a frozen frown as

the briefer described the biological warfare

research laboratory in the science building, at the

University of Havana. He covered his face with a

hand as the briefer explained that some of the warheads from

Nuestra Senora de Colon

appeared to be resting on a sandy ocean floor in the

Bahamas, with a North Korean freighter anchored

nearby.

"The good newsea"...the briefer said brightly,

"is that the freighter seems to be in Baharaan

territorial waters."

"Do you have a plan"..."...the president asked General

Totten.

"Yes, sir. At our request, the Bahamans have

formally requested that a United States ship board

and search the North Korean freighter, which has

violated their territorial waters. The nearest

U.s. ship will be there in three hours."

"And if the North Koreans raise the anchor and

sail away?"

"We'll stop the ship anyway, remove any

United States government property mat we

find."

"Another international incidentff"...the president

grumped. "The North Koreans will shout bloody

murder, then the Cubans will join the chorus."

The national security adviser jumped right in.

"Sir, the Cubans can't prove we had CBW

warheads in Gitmo."

"Can't prove? If Fidel Castro doesn't have

a stolen artillery shell on his desk right now

I'll kiss your ass at high noon on the

Capitol steps while CNN"

"Sir, we think"

"Let me finish!

Don't interrupt! I'm the guy the congressmen are

going to fry when they hear about this fiasco. Let me

finish."

Silence.

The president swallowed once, adjusted his tie.

"And nowea"...he said, trying to keep the acid out of his

voice, "we learn the Cubans have a biological

weapons lab in a building in the heart of

Havana, at the university there. Is that

correct?"'

"Yes,, sir."

"What I would like to know is this: Have the Cubans got

any way of using biological weapons on the

United States right now? Today? Have they got a

delivery system?"

"Sir, we don't know."

"Well, by God, in my nonmilitary opinion we

ought to find out just as fast as we can. Does anybody

in this room agree with that proposition?"

"Yes, sir."

"Another thing I want to know: Somebody explain

again how the goddamned Chemical Weapons Treaty

will make countries like Cuba decide not

to build biological and chemical weapons."

The silence that followed that question was broken by the

chairman of the joint chiefs, General Tater

Totten:

"The Chemical Weapons Convention Agreement

won't dissuade anyone who wants these weapons from

building them. All it will do is force us to rid ourselves

of the weapons that deter others from using these things.

Chemical and biological weapons are only

employed when a user believes his enemy cannot or will

not retaliate in kind. Your staff knew that and

wanted the treaty anyway so that you could brag about it

on the stump and win votes from soccer moms who

don't know shit from peanut butter."

The president eyed General Totten sourly, then

surveyed the rest of them. "At least somebody around

here has the guts to tell it like it isea"...he muttered.

The chairman continued: "Doing the right thing isn't the

same as getting the right result. We could use more

of the latter and less of the former, if you ask me."

"Don't push it, Generalea"...the president snarled.

The gray-haired general motored on as if the

president hadn't said a word. "To get back to your

question, of course the Cubans have a delivery system,

or several. Biological weapons are the

easiest of all weapons to employ. The delivery

system could be as simple as planes rigged to spray

microorganisms into the atmosphere: after all,

Cuba is just ninety miles south of Key West;

jets could be over Florida in minutes. Or a

few teams of Cuban saboteurs could induce the

toxins into the water supply systems of major

citiestens of millions of people could be infected before

anyone figured out there was even a problem."

Here was the classic dilemma: The U.s. was

prepared to fight a nuclear war to the finish and lick

anyone on the planet in a conventional war.

Hundreds of billions of dollars had been spent

on networks and communications, on precision weapons

and missile Systems, on an army, navy and air

force that were die best equipped, trained, and led armed

forces on earth. So if there were an armed conflict,

no sane enemy would confront the United States

on a conventional or nuclear battlefield:

guerrilla warfare and terror weapons were the

alternatives.

"What die Cubans probably don't

haveea"...General Totten continued, "is the engineering and

industrial capacity to turn tankfuls of toxins

into true weapons, weapons that are safe

to handle, can be stored indefinitely, and aimed

precisely. That's why they want to get tiieir

hands on that shipload of biological warheads."

"So how do we prevent the use of CBW

weapons"..."...the president asked.

"You have to deter the bad guysea"...Tater Totten

explained. "You have to be willing to do it to, them

worse man they can do it to you. And they have to know that you

will."

"You're saying that if the Cubans murder ten

million Americans; we have to kill every human in

Cuba?"

"That's right. Mutually assured destruction."

"M-A-D." .

"Insane. But there is no other way. If these people

think you lack the resolve to retaliate in kind, you

just lost the war."

"If anyone kills Americans we will

retaliateea"...the president said. "That's been

U.s. policy since George Washington took

the oath of office."

The general concentrated on straightening a paper

clip, then bending it into a new shape.

Finally, when the president had had his say, when the

national security adviser had summed up

the situation, the chairman spoke again: 'The agent in

Havana who found the lab had a request. It was in

the last paragraph of bis message this morning.

Mr. Adviser, do you wish to discuss itr

The adviser obviously didn't wish to discuss it;

he could have raised the point at any time during the

meeting and hadn't. A flash of irritation crossed

his face, then he said, "I've gone over that

request with the staff, and with State, ah, and both staff

and State feel it is completely out of bounds."

"What request"..."...the president asked curtly.

"Sir, staff and State feel the request is

absolutely out of the question; I struck it from the

agenda."

"What request"..."...the president repeated with some

heat.

"The agent wants Operation Flashlight to happen

at onethirty A.m. tomorrowea"...Tater Totten said.

"And that is"..."...the president said, frowning.

"He wants the power grid in central Havana

knocked out."

"Oh. Now I remember. You want to blow some

highvoltage towers."

"That's correct, sir. This operation was discussed and

approved three weeks ago."

"Oh, no. Three weeks ago I gave a

tentative approval, tentative only.

Sabotage of a power network of a foreign nation is a

damn serious matter. Back when I was in school

we called that an act of war."

"It still isea"...the national security adviser said. He

was something of a suck-up, General Totten thought.

"I think this matter deserves more discussionea"...the

president said.

"Yes,

sir."

"What happens if the people setting these charges are

arrested?"

The director of the CIA reluctantly stepped

in. "Sir, that is one of the inherent risks of

clandestine operations. The men who set the charges know

the risks. We know the risks. The fact is that the

possible gains here make the risks worth running.

That's the same cost-benefit analysis we make

before we authorize any clandestine operation."

"What if one of these people is arrested? Can the

Cubans prove they work for the CIA?"

"No, sir. They will appear to be Cuban

exiles, in Cuba creating mischief on their own

hook."

"This operation gives me a bad feeling in the pit of

my stomachea"...the president said. "There are too many

things going wrong all at once."

General Totten could hold his tongue no longer.

"There is no time to be lostea"...he said. "Four

vials of microorganisms taken from a

biological warfare laboratory located just

ninety miles south of Key West in the capital

of a communist country hostile to the United States

are this very minute being examined in laboratories in

the Washington area. Cuba could become another

Iraq, armed to the teeth with chemical and

biological weapons. This nation cannot afford to let that

happen. Cuba is only

ninety

miles away. The risk is simply too great."

The president glared around the room. Looking for

someone to blame, General Totten thought.

"Mr. President, Flashlight will take hours

to pull off,"

the CIA director said. "I've already given the

order for it to proceed."

"You've already given the order"..."...The president

repeated the words incredulously.

"There was no time to be lostea"...the director

shot back. "These things take hours to set in

motion. The execution time is one-thirty A.m.,

less than six hours away."

The chairman of the joint chiefs leaned forward in his

chair, rested both elbows on the mahogany table.

"Mr. President, we have no choice in this

matter. None at all. If this administration

fails to move aggressively to learn exactly

what the Cuban threat is and take steps to meet

it, you will almost certainly be impeached and removed from

office by Congress for dereliction of duty."

The president looked as if he were going

to explode. This was a side of him the voters never

saw. A control freak, like most politicians,

he hated just being along for the ride. Watching the

president seethe, Tater Totten knew his days

on active duty were numbered. The CIA

director had better start thinking about retirement,

too.

"Who is our agent in Cuba"..."...the president

demanded.

The director looked startled. Names of agents were

closely held, never discussed in meetings like this.

Yet he couldn't refuse to answer a direct question

from the president of the United States.

"Sir, if you need that information, I could write it

on a sheet of paper."...The director grabbed a

notepad and did so. He tore off the sheet,

folded it once, and passed it down the table. The

president put the folded paper in front of him but

didn't open it.

"I want to know who authorized this man"...the

president tapped on the folded paper with a finger"...ffg

to Cuba to see what cesspools he could uncover."

"Sir, this mission was authorized by this council two

months ago."

"Then why in hell didn't someone mention it when we

were discussing getting our warheads home from

Guanta"- namo Bay? Why wasn't that cargo

ship escorted from pier

to pier? Why in hell didn't we get those warheads

out of there two months ago, two years ago?

Why in hell can't you people get a goddamn grip?"

Silence followed that outburst. It was broken when the

chairman said, "Instead of fretting over the timing,

let's pat ourselves on the back for being smart enough to have

an agent in Havana. It's the Cubans'

weapons lab, not ours."

When Tater Totten walked out of the room, he still

had his letter of resignation from the joint chiefs

in his pocket. He had prepared it when the national

security adviser struck Operation Lightbulb from

the agenda. Maybe he should have laid the letter on the

president and retired to the golf course before these

fools drove this truck off the cliff. He had

no doubt the mess in Cuba was about to blow up in their

faces, and soon.

The American warship nearest the unnamed cay where the

North Korean freighter was anchored was a

destroyer out of Charleston, South Carolina,

manned by naval reservists on their annual

two-week tour of active duty. The destroyer

had been on its way to Nassau for a weekend port

call when the flash message rolled off the printer.

The destroyer's flank speed was 34 knots, and

she was making every knot of it now as she thundered down the

Exuma Channel with a bone hi her teeth.

From "five thousand feet Jake Grafton could

see the destroyer plainly eveji though it was twenty

miles away. And he could see the wake lengthening

behind the North Korean freighter,

Wonsan.

"Damn scow is getting under wayea"...Rita said

disgustedly. She was flying the V-22. "It'll be

in international waters long before the destroyer

gets there."

"Wonder how many warheads they pulled out of the

water?"

"We're going to find out pretty soonea"...Jake

muttered. "If this guy stops and lets us board

him, he won't have a

warhead aboard. If he refuses to heave to,

he's got a bunch."

"What are you going to do, Admiral, if he

refuses to stop?"

Jake Grafton didn't have an answer to that

contingency, nor did he want to make the decision.

If that eventuality came to pass he would ask for

guidance from Washington, pass the buck along to people

who would probably refer it to the politicians.

'The

Wonsan

is turning northeastea"...Rita observed. "She'll

probably go between Cat Island and San

Salvador."

"Let's go downea"...Jake Grafton said, "hover

in front of this guy, see if he'll stop."...He was

sitting on the flight engineer's seat just aft of the

pilots.

Five minutes later the Osprey was in

helicopter flight with the rotors tilted up,

descending gently hi front of the

Wonsan,

which was up to five or six knots now. Jake

Grafton could see four people on the bridge, standing

close together and gesturing at the Osprey. The

copilot was watching the clearance, telling Rita how

much maneuvering room she had.

"Closerea"...Jake said.

Rita Moravia kept the Osprey moving in.

Luckily the wind was from the west, so she could keep the

twin-rotor machine on the starboard side of the

freighter, yet pointed right at the bridge. This

kept the wind on her starboard quarter.

She stopped when the distance between her cockpit and the

bridge glass was about fifty yards. The right

rotor was still well above the top of the freighter's

crane, which was mounted amidships.

"Closerea"...Jake said again, "but watch your

clearance."

The copilot glanced nervously at Jake.

"Give me clearanceea"...Rita snapped at him, which

brought him back to the job at hand.

She maneuvered the Osprey until it was

completely on

the starboard side of the

Wonsan,

then she dropped it until she could see the length of the

bridge.

The captainhe might have been the captain, wearing a

dirty, white bridge capstepped through the door of the

bridge onto the wing and stood looking into the

cockpit, fifteen feet away. He had his hands

pressed against his ears, trying to deaden the mighty roar

of the two big engines. The downwash from the rotors

raised a storm of sea spray, which was soaking him,

and now it carried away his hat.

"Closerea"...Jake said one more time.

"The air is sorta bumpy coming around this

superstructure."

"Yeahea"...the admiral said.

Ten feet separated the nose of the V-22 from the

rail of the bridge wing. Rita eased the Osprey

forward a foot at a time, until the refueling

probe and three barrels of the turreted

fifty-caliber machine gun dist protruded from the

nose were no more than eighteen inches from the rail.

"Aim the gun at the captainea"...Jake said.

The copilot flipped a switch, then looked at the

captain's head, and the machine gun

faithfully tracked, following the aiming commands sent

to it from the gunsight mounted on the copilot's

helrriet.

The captain's face was nowiess than ten feet from

Jake Grafton's. He was balding, a bit

overweight, in his late fifties. The rotor wash

lashed at him and tore at his sodden clothes, making

it difficult for him to keep his footing. Groping for a

rail to steady himself against the fierce wind, he looked

at the three-barreled machine gun, which tracked him

like a living thing, then at Jake Grafton on the

seat behind the Osprey pilots.

The captain turned and shouted something over his left

shoulder; he held on with both hands as he went through

the door onto the enclosed bridge.

"Watch itea"...Jake muttered into his lip mike.

"This guy may be fool enough to turn into you."

Rita was the first to realize what was happening. She

felt the need to turn left to hold position. "The

ship is slowbigea"...she said. "I think he's stopped

his engines."

In a few seconds it became obvious that she was

correct. Rita backed away until the distance

between the cockpit and ship was about fifty

feet.

"I think he lost his nerve, Admiral."

"Look at the stuff on his deckea"...the copilot

said, pointing. "Looks like he pulled up a bunch

of warheads."

The freighter was drifting when the destroyer arrived a

half hour later and coasted to a stop several

hundred yards away. In minutes the destroyer had

a boat hi the water.

When armed Americans were standing on the

Wonsan's

deck, Jake tapped Rita on the shoulder.

"Let's go home."

"I listened to the tape from Alejo Vargas's

office this afternoonea"...Carmellini said to Chance. They were

walking the Prado looking for a place to eat dinner.

To have a decent selection and palatable food, the

restaurant would have to be a hard-currency place.

Although the best restaurants were in ramshackle

houses hi Old Havana, tonight Chance wanted

music, laughter, people.

"Someone told Vargas all about the break-in at the

university lab, the contamination, the dead lab worker.

They spent most of the day running the fans at the

lab, trying to lower the count of the stuff in the

air before they went in."

"What did they say about the dead man, why he

died?"

"That had them stumped. He was vaccinated. They

called hi a Professor Svenson."

"Olaf Svenson?"

"No one used a first name."

"It must be him. I've heard of him. Damned

potty old fool. He was at Cal Tech for

years. Thought he was at Colorado now. A

genius, almost won a Nobel Prize."...He

snapped his fingers. "That photo we gave

Bouchardthat must have been Svenson."

"Well, he is their main man down at the lab,

to hear the conversation at Vargas's office."

"So why did the lab worker die? Wasn't he

vaccinated?"

"The stuff mutated, according to the professor.

Mutated again, he said."

"Well, what the hell is it? Did they say that?"

"Some kind of polio."

"Polio doesn't kill that quicklyea"...Chance

objected.

"This kind does. The lab worker wasn't the first,

apparently. The professor wanted

to dissect him like the others but Vargas ordered the body

burned immediately."

They paused on a corner, watched the people who filled

the sidewalks under the crumbling buildings. Just down

the walk to the left a Cuban was trying to sell

trinkets to a pah* of Germans and having no

luck. To the right a tall young white guy,

American or Canadian probably, was locked

in a passionate embrace with a local girl.

"Sun, sex, and socialismea"...Carmellini

muttered. "Makes you wonder why there aren't more

Cubans."

Chance closed his eyes, enjoyed the caress of the

breeze on bis face and hair. He could hear

snatches of music amid the honk of car horns and

traffic sounds. Havana was very much alive this

evening, as it was every evening.

Finally he opened his eyes, looked again at the

Cubans and tourists swirling about him. And

Carmellini standing there, quite nonchalant, looking

bored.

"Do they have any ideas about who broke in?"

"Americans. CIA scum. No evidence, but

they're sure."

Chance nodded.

'There was talkea"...Carmellini continued, "of rounding

up likely suspects, doing some thorough

interrogations, just to see what might turn up. That was

Colonel Santana's suggestion: apparently he

is a rare piece of work. Vargas overruled him.

Said they couldn't torture tourists every time the CIA

did something they didn't like or soon they wouldn't have

any tourists."

"Anything else?"

Carmellini shrugged, scratched his chin. "I listened

to almost three hours" worth of that stuff, and you know,

they didn't mention Fidel Castro even once."

"Didn't say his name?"

"Nope. And the technician said he hadn't heard

them mention Castro all day."

"Curious."

"It's odd. I would have thought"

After a bit Chance said, "The lab is just the tip

of the iceberg. There must be machinery for drying out the

cultures, for packing the microorganisms

into warheads or mixing them into some sort of chemical

stew to be sprayed from planes. There must be trucks

that transport this stuff from place to place. And then

there are the weapons: where the hell are they?"

They went into one of the nightclubs and found

an empty table. Six whores were sitting around the

table beside them. The girls were drinking daiquiris and

having a fine, comloud time. One of the girls looked

the two men over while the band tuned up just a few

feet away.

"Washington wants more informationea"...Carmellini said,

ignoring the whores.

"They would."...Chance chewed on his lip for a bit, then

picked up the wine list. "Tonight's the night we go

into Vargas's safe. Are you comfortable with that?"

Carmellini took his time answering. Chance was about

to repeat the question when he said, "If the alarms are

off."

'They'll be off."

"Sure."

'Trust, me."

When the waiter came they ordered dinner.

"So tell me again alxwt the Ministry of

Interiorea"...Carmellini said. "Everything you can

recall. Everything."

Chance leaned back, closed his eyes, tried

to visualize how the building looked when he had

stepped from the taxi

out front on his way to his meeting with Alejo

Vargas.

"There is a guard kiosk out front on the

sidewalk. You then walk through the front entrance to the

guard station inside. They check your credentials

again, call whoever you say you want to see. This

person comes to get you, leads you through the halls to the

office you are to visit."

"Cameras?"

"Security cameras mounted high in corners,

monitored by the main guard station. There are two

separate systems, at least, with pictures playing

on separate monitors."

"Infrared sensors?"

"I think so...."...The fact is he should have paid more

attention. Looked more carefully, consciously noted

what he was seeing. "Yes, I remember seeing

one."

"Motion detectors?"

"No."

"Laser alarms?"

"Yes, mounted at ankle height."...Presumably

these were only on when the building was not occupied.

"Alarms on the windows?"

"Yes."

"Vibrators on the glass?"

"No."...If there had been vibrators, the

computer would have had a much more difficult job sorting

out the voices from the electronic noise of the

vibrators when it tried to read the light refracted

by the crystals.

"Were there internal security doors, doors that

might be closed when the building is not occupied?"

"Yes. Every hall had them, but I doubt they were ever

used."

"And internal security stations?"

"I saw none."

Carmellini thought about it. Closed security doors

made a burglar's access more difficult, but they

provided a peaceful, quiet place for a burglar

to work once he had gained entry.

"Do they have backup power when the power goes

off"..."...Carmellini mused.

"They mustea"...Chance replied thoughtfully. "A backup

generator of some type. I'm going to walk in

assuming that they do, but I'll be improvising as I

go."

"We'll sure as hell find out soon enough,

won't we"..."...Carmellini said, and grinned. That was the

first grin he had managed all afternoon. The death of the

lab worker had hit him hard, but the cool execution

of the guard at the front door by William

Henry Chance had hit him like a punch to the solar

plexus. Chance just gunned the man down and kept on

trucking, as if killing another human being were something

he did every morning before lunch.

All evening Carmellini had studied the older man,

watched him for a sign that the murder of the guard was

anything more than absolutely routine. And he had

seen nothing. Nothing at all. Chance looked as if

he might be having dinner in a restaurant in the

Bronx with a Yankees game from a kitchen radio

as background noise.

Carmellini stared at the food on the plate that the

waiter put in front of him. He didn't want

a mournful. But what he wouldn't give for a stiff

drink! He sipped at a glass of water, felt

his stomach knot up.

"Order a drinkea"...Chance said as he used his knife

and fork. "One. Something on the rocks. You need it

We have a long night ahead."

Carmellini looked around for the waiter, and found himself

staring at one of the whores at the next table, who

gave him a big grin. He grinned back. A

man just has to keep things in perspective.

The sun had been down for several hours when

Enrique Poveda and Arquimidez

Cabrera drove up to the fourth EHV tower they

hoped to blow. After a quick look around, they unlocked

the padlock on the gate and put bn their tool

belts. Each of the men picked a tower leg and started

up. About ten feet above the ground they found the shaped

charges of C-4 plastique still firmly taped to the

steel legs. Working in the darkness by feel, each man

took a chemical timer from his belt, a device about

the size and shape of a fountain pen, and inserted it into the

plastique. The timer was already set to explode as

near to 1:30 A.m. as possible.

After setting the timers, they climbed down to the ground,

then ascended the other two legs. In minutes they were

back on the ground.

They locked the padlock, closed up the back of the

van, and drove away.

"One moreea"...Poveda said. He wished he had a map

or diagram, but all that had been left behind in

Florida. There he and Cabrera and the U.s.

Army power grid expert had labored for days over

satellite reconnaissance photos,

photographs taken from the ground by not-so-innocent

tourists, and computer-generated diagrams. They

selected the target towers and committed their locations

to memory. Not a single sheet of paper

left the room with them.

So now Cabrera pointed down one street and

Poveda motioned toward another. The men chuckled.

"I am very sureea"...Poveda said. "Two blocks

down, right turn, then on for a half mile."

"Okay."

"I am glad it was tonightea"...Cabrera said. "The

charges had been in place too long, the new

padlocks were there too long, I was getting

nervousyou know what I mean, my friend?"

Poveda grunted. He knew. His stomach felt as

if it were tied in a knot. He hadn't felt this

uptight about an operation since his first one, fifteen

years ago, when he was very young. He had been

to Cuba many times since, eight as he recalled, and

none of them were as tense as that first time, until now.

The Cubans had almost caught him and his partner that

time. The partner was eventually caught six years

later and died under interrogation, or so they heard

months after that. Poveda had promised himself then and

there that he would never be taken alive, that he would not

die in a Cuban prison.

Communists! He made a spitting motion out the open

window. The communists took everything from the people hi

Cuba who had worked and saved and built for the

future, and gave it to the people who had not. Now look

at the place! Everyone poor, everyone on the edge

of starvation, the cities and towns and factories

rotting from lack of investment. The communists ran off

the people who could make Cuba grow, the people the nation needed

to feed everyone else. Ah, these bastards deserved

their misery, and by God they had had some. Universal

destitution was Castro's legacy, his gift

to generations yet unborn.

Poveda was a pessimist. He knew that soon

Castro would be dead and things would change in Cuba.

"They'll forget Fidel's faults, remember just

the goodea"...he told Cabrera, for the hundredth time.

"You wait and see. In a hundred years the church

will make him a saint."

"Saint Fidel."...Cabrera laughed.

"I shit you not. That is the way of the world. The people he

pissed on the most will call him blessed."

"Saint or devil, we'll fuck the son of a

bitch a little

tonightea"...Cabrera said as the van pulled up to the last

tower.

Poveda killed the van's engine and lights and the two

men got out. Silence.

"Awful quiet, don't you think"..."...Poveda

asked.

Cabrera stood by the van's rear doors, listening,

looking around. Poveda dug in his pocket for the key

to the padlock, inserted it.

It wouldn't fit. He tried another.

"What's wrong?"

"Key doesn't seem to want to go in this lock."

"Let's get the fuck outta here, manea"...Cabrera

said, and started for the van's passenger door.

A spotlight hit them.

"Put up your handsea"...boomed a voice on a

loudspeaker.

Poveda dropped to his knees, pulled a 9-mm

pistol from his pocket. He didn't hesitatehe

aimed at the spotlight and started shooting.

Something hit him in the back. He was down beside the

rear tire trying to rise when he realized he had

been shot. People shooting from two directions, muzzle

flashes, thuds of bullets smacking into the van like

hailstones. A groan from Cabrera.

"I'm hit, Enrique."

"Bad?"

"I think... I think so."...He grunted as another

bullet audibly smacked into his body.

The bullet that hit Poveda had come out his

stomach. He could feel the wetness, the spreading

warmth as blood poured from the exit wound. Not a lot

of pain yet, but a huge gaping hole in his belly.

He lifted the pistol, pointed it at Arquimidez

Cabrera, his best friend. There, he could see the back

of his head. He fired once; Cabrera's head

slammed forward into the dirt. Then he put the barrel

flush against the side of his own head and pulled the

trigger.

Sitting in the back of a van just down the street from the

Ministry of Interior, William Henry Chance

watched the second hand of his watch sweep toward the

twelve. It passed 1:30 A.m. and swept

on.

The lights stayed on. Carmellini was looking at his

own watch.

"What the hell is wrong now"..."...Carmellini asked.

"I don't know."

"Oh, Lord."

They sat there in the van looking at the lights of the

city.

"It went badea"...Tommy Carmellini said. "Time for

us to boogie."

"We'll give them a few minutes."

"Jesus, when it doesn't go down as

planned, something is wrong. What are you waiting for,

a phone call from Fidel? Let's bail out while

our asses are still firmly attached."

"If I had any brains I wouldn't be in this

businessea"...Chance replied tartly.

His watch read exactly ten seconds after 1:32

A.m. when the lights of downtown Havana

flickered. "All rightea"...Carmellini said, and whacked

his leg with his hand.

The lights flickered, dimmed, came back on,

then went completely out. All the lights. Only

automobile headlights broke the total darkness.

'That's it. Let's goea"...Chance said to Tommy

Carmellini. They opened the back of the van and

climbed out while the driver of the van started the

engine. Chance walked the few steps back to an old

Russian Lada parked at the curb behind the van and

got into the passenger seat. Carmellini started the car

and turned on the headlights while the van pulled

away from the curb.

The two agents drove down the street toward the

Ministry of Interior, a hulking immensity even

darker than the night.

The three guards at the main entrance of the Ministry

were illuminated by the headlights when Tommy

Carmellini

drove up. He killed the engine and pocketed the

key as William Henry Chance got out on the

passenger side.

Of course the guards had seen Chance's uniform from the

car's interior light while the door was opennow they

flashed the beam of a flashlight upon him. Then they

saluted.

Chance was dressed in the uniform of a Security

Department colonel. He had been to the building

several days ago in the daytime wearing civilian

clothes: he thought it highly unlikely mat anyone

who had seen nun then would recognize him now. It

was a risk he was willing to take. Still, his stomach

felt as if he had swallowed a rock as he

returned the guards" salute, and spoke:

"We were just a block away when the power failed all

over this district."

"Yes, Colonel. Just a minute or two ago."

"And you are?"

"Lieutenant G6mez, sir, the duty

officer."

"Have you taken steps to start the emergency generator,

Goodmez?"

"Ahh... I was about to do so, Colonel.

It is in the basement. I was waiting to see if the

power would come back on immediately. Often these Outages

last but moments and"

"The darkness seems widespread, Gomez. Let

us start the generator."

"Of course, Colonel."...The lieutenant began

giving directions to his two enlisted men, who

obviously knew nothing about the emergency generator.

The lieutenant began by telling them which room the

generator was in.

Chance interrupted again. "Perhaps you would like to take them

there, supervise the start-up, Lieutenant. My

driver and I will guard the front entrance until you

return."

"Of course, Colonel."...With his flashlight beam

leading the way, the lieutenant and the two enlisted men

made for the stairs.

Carmellini opened the trunk of the car, extracted a

duffel

bag, which he swung over one shoulder. Without a word

to Chance he disappeared into the dark interior of the

building.

Carmellini took the main staircase to the top

floor of the building, then strode quickly down the

hall to Alejo Vargas's private

office. The door was locked, of course.

Working in total darkness, Carmellini ran his hands

over the door. One lock, near the handle. From the

bag he extracted a small light driven by a

battery unit that hooked on his belt. He donned

a headband, then stuck the light to the headband with a

piece of Velcro.

He checked his watch. It was 1:36 A.m.

He examined the lock, felt in the bag for his

picks.

Hmmm. This one, perhaps. He inserted it into the lock.

No.

This one? Yes.

The latex gloves didn't seem to affect his

feel for the lock.

Carmellini had always enjoyed pick work. The

exquisite feel necessary, the patience required, the

pressure of time usually, the treasure waiting to be

discovered on the other side of the door... the CIA

had been a damned lucky break. Without that break

he would have certainly wound up in prison sooner or

later when his luck ran out, because no one's luck

lasts forever.

He inserted a smaller pick, felt for the contacts

...

And twisted, using the strength of his fingers.

The bolt opened.

He stowed the picks, picked up the duffel bag, and

opened the door.

Dark office, with the only light coming through the windows,

the glow of headlights on the street below, somewhere the

flicker of a fire.

The safe sat in the corner away from the windows. It

was old, and huge, at least six feet tall,

three feet wide and three feet deep. Painted

on the door of the safe was a pas-

toral scene; above the landscape arranged in a

semicircle were the words "United Fruit

Company."

After a quick glance at the safe, Carmellini turned

his attention to the rest of the room. He searched quickly

and methodically. First the drawers of the desk. One of

them held a pistol, one a bottle of expensive

scotch whiskey and several glasses, one pens and

pencils and a blank pad of paper. Several lists

of names, phone numbers, addresses ...

The lower right drawer of the desk was locked. A

small, cheap furniture lock. He opened it with a

knife, began examining files. The files seemed

to be on senior people hi the government,

girlfriends, vices, lies told, bribes offered and

accepted, that kind of thing.

He flipped through the files quickly, stacked them on

the desk, and moved oa.

The crystals were on the windowsill. A rack of

books was below the window. A cursory check

revealed no files peeking out between the books.

The displays of old coins didn't even rate a

glance. Back before he worked for the government the coins

would have made his juices flow, but not now.

On to the credenza. Many files in there. Carmellini

sampled them, looking for anything on biology,

weapons, strange code names. When he saw something

he didn't understand he opened the file and glanced at

the papers inside. Peoplemost of these files were

on people. Unfortunately Tommy didn't

recognize the names. He added the files to the stack

on the desk.

Now he discame to the safe. They must have lifted it

to this floor with a crane before the windows

viere

installed, he thought He checked every square inch of the

exterior to see if the safe was wired. No

wires.

Tommy Carmellini tried the handle.

No.

Turned the circular combination dial ever so carefully

to the right, maintaining pressure on the handle. If the

safe

had been closed hastily, all the tumblers might not

have gone home. He took his time.

No. The safe was locked.

He checked his watch. Now 1:47.

The lights would come on soon, powered by the emergency

generator.

He opened the duffel bag and began extracting

items. The first item he removed was a

telescoping rod which he extended and positioned over

the safe's combination dial; he secured it there with

clamps placed on each side of the safe. Working

quickly, witiMio lost motion, he clamped a

small electric motor to the rod, then adjusted the

jaws protruding from the motor so that they grasped the

dial of the safe.

Other sensors were placed on the top, bottom,

left, and right sides of the safe door. These

sensors were held in place by magnets.

Wires led from the sensors and electric motor to a

small computer, which he now took from the bag and

turned on. There was one lead remaining, which

he connected to a twelve-volt battery which was also in

the bag.

As he waited for the computer to boot up he checked

all the leads one more tune. Everything okay.

Tommy"...Carmellini pursed his lips, as if he were

whistling.

This contraption was of his own design, and with it he could

open any of the older-style mechanical safes, if

he were given enough time. An electrical current

introduced into the door of the safe created a

measurable magnetic field. The rotation of the

tumblers inside the lock caused fluctuations in the

field, fluctuations that were displayed on the computer

screen. Finally, the computer measured the amount of

electric current necessary to turn the dial Of the

lock; an exquisitely sensitive measurement.

Using both these factors, the computer could determine

the combination that would open the safe.

Sitting cross-legged in front of the safe with the

com-

puter on his lap, Carmellini tugged the latex

gloves he was wearing tighter onto his hands, then

manually zeroed the dial of the lock. Now he started

the computer program.

The dial rotated slowly, silently,

driven by the electric motor clamped to the rod.

After a complete turn the dial stopped at 32.

The number appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the

screen. After a short pause, the dial turned to the

left, counterclockwise, as Carmellini grinned

happily.

In his mind's eye he could visualize the lock

plates rotating, the tumblers moving....

The line on the screen that tracked the magnetic

field twitched unexpectedly. Carmellini

frowned. He hadn't moved, the building was quiet

Another squiggle, so insignificant he almost

missed it And another.

Someone was coming. Someone was walking softly down the

hall; the sensors were picking up the shock waves of

their footfalls as the waves spread out through the

structure of the building.

Careful to make no noise at all, Tommy

Carmellini set the computer on the duffel bag,

stood up and moved over behind the door. As he did

he drew the Ruger from its holster under his shirt and

thumbed off the safety, then turned off the light

attached to his headband. Now he transferred the

pistol to his left hand. greater-than caret ith his

right he reached into a hip pocket and

extracted a sap, a flexible length of rubber with the

business end weighted with lead.

The darkness appeared total as his eyes adjusted.

Gradually a bit of glare from headlights faintly

illuminated the room.

Carmellini had good ears, and he couldn't hear the

footfalls. He could hear the tiniest whine, however,

that the electric motor made as it turned the dial

of the lock, the distant honking of some vehicle

blocks away, and faintly, "ver so family, the

wail of a fire or police siren.

Tommy Carmellini stopped breathing, stopped

thinking,

stood absolutely frozen as the knob on the door

slowly turned, then the door began to open.

William Henry Chance walked slowly back and

forth hi front of less-than he glass doors that

marked the main entrance to the Ministry. The duty

officer and his two men were hi the basement, doing God

knows what to the emergency generator. Chance wondered

how long it had been since the generator had been

fueled, oiled, checked carefully, and started.

The second hand on his watch seemed frozen. He

checked his watch, walked, watched cars and trucks

pass by, adjusted his duty belt and

pistol, reset the cap on his head, strolled some

more, promised himself he wouldn't look at the luminous

hands on his watch, finally peeked anyway. A

minute. One lousy minute had passed.

Someone was coming along the sidewalk... a uniformed

guard carrying an AK-47 at high port. He

must be stationed at one of the side or rear entrances.

The man stopped, slightly startled, when he saw

Chance's figure standing in the door. Now he peered

closer. And saluted.

"Sir, I am looking for the'duty officer."

"He is hi the basement, starting the emergency

generator. Is there someone else at your post?"

"Uh, yessir. I was coming around to check if"

"I think you should stay at your post. The emergency

power for the building will come on in a-few minutes, then

you can make your request of the duty officer."

"Yeseamsir. But the last time we started that thing,

all the alarms went off, every one of them. The duty

officer always wanted the alarms off before he turned the

power back on."

"I am sure he will take care of that. He knows the

system."

"Yessir."

"And when was the emergency generator last

used, anyway?"

"The big storm last year, sir. Eight or nine

months ago, I think."

"Go back to your post."

"Yes, sir."...The man saluted, turned, and marched

down the sidewalk. Chance could hear his footsteps for

several seconds after he disappeared into the gloom.

The guy accepted him as Cuban, as had

Lieutenant G6mez and his men. If they only

knew the hundreds of hours of language classes

that Chance had endured to learn the accent, to get it

exactly right!

All in anticipation of a moment that might never come.

Yet the orders did arrive, and here he was,

walking around in the foyer of secret police

headquarters in Havana spouting Cuban Spanish

like Jose Marti.

He went to the guard's station, used his flashlight

to examine the equipment there. The video monitors

were of course blank, everything off, but where was the

tape? If the power came on while he was there he

didn't want to give Alejo Vargas a souvenir

videotape of the men who cracked his safe.

Ah, here was the videotape machine, hi this

cabinet. He pushed the eject button,

futilely. Without power the machine would not eject the

tape that it contained. He used the Rugerfour shots

into the heads of the machine.

The brass kicked out on the floor. He picked

them up, pocketed them.

More pacing. Each minute was an agony of waiting.

When the power was restored to the building, he had

expected the alarms to go off in Vargas's office,

and to have to cover Carmellini as he made his exit.

By whatever means necessary, he intended to be the only

man at the main entrance when Carmellini emerged.

Yet if alarms were a normal occurrence, perhaps

violence would not be necessary.

The silenced Ruger rode inside his shirt under his

left armpit. The pistol was an assassin's

weapon, shot a .22 Long Rifle hollow-point

bullet that would do minimal dam-

age unless

fired

into someone's brain at point-blank range. Wounds

in the limbs or body would be painful but not immediately

incapacitating. The Ruger's only virtue was the

silencer that dramatically muffled the report,

reduced it from an ear-splitting crack to a soft,

wet pop that was inaudible beyond a few feet.

He wondered how Carmellini was coming on getting the

safe open. Come

on, Tommy!

Footsteps from within the building.

Here came a flashlight.

"Ah, Colonel, the lieutenant sent me to tell

you that it will not be much longer, that the generator will s.tart

very soon."

"Yes."

"He is having difficulty, the mechanical

condition is not as it should be."

"I understand. I have faith in your lieutenant."

The man went back down the hallway in the

direction from whence he came.

More pacing.

At least three more minutes had passed when the

lieutenant came down the hallway. The occasional

flicker of passing headlights revealed him to be a

large, rotund man.

"I am sorry, Colonel, but we cannot make the

cursed thing run."

"No harm done, if your guards stay alert. And

I can always come back tomorrow for my errand, I

suppose."

"We will stay alert, sir. Our duty is

our trust."

"You and your men have done what you can, have you not?"

"We could awaken Colonel Santana, I

suppose. Perhaps he knows more about the generator than

any of us."

Chance tried to keep his voice under control.

"Colonel Santana is in the building, then?"

"Yes, sir. He came in about an hour ago.

He went to his apartment on the top floor. I

think he was investigating the

incident of the two saboteurs that were killed near a

highvoltage tower south of town."

"A high-voltage tower? That sounds like attempted

sabotage."

"Oh, yes, sir."

"I hadn't heard of that incident."

"Enemies of the regime, sir. Apparently some of

them were successful."

"Santana is the very man I came to seeea"...Chance

declared. "Still, I did not expect to find him

asleep. I suggest you give the generator one last

mighty heroic effort, and if you are unsuccessful,

I shall awaken Colonel Santana."

When the doorknob had turned as far as it would go, the

door to Alejo Vargas's office slowly

opened. Tommy Carmellini was behind the door, still as

a statue hi the park, with a sap in his right hand and the

silenced Ruger in his left.

Now a flashlight beam shot out, swung quickly around

the room, hit the safe and swung away for an

instant, then returned to the door of the safe. The

apparatus Carmellini had attached to the door was quite

plain in the small beam, as was the tangle of wires

that ran to the computer.

Faster than he would have ever believed possible, the

door smashed Tommy Carmellini in the face. The

impact stunned him, threw him backward against the

wall.

The man sprang into the room, swung something that

smacked Carmellini in the skull and made him see

stars.

He was falling, off-balance, the other man coming for him

in a brutal, ferocious way, when he got the

Ruger more or less pointed and began pulling the

trigger as fast as he could. He could barely hear the

pops.

He fell to the floor and his assailant leaped on

him, began smashing him in the face with his fist,

repeatedly.

Swinging his right hand with all his might,

Carmellini hit the other man in the side of the head

with the sap. And again.

The man was slumping, falling to the left.

Carmellini gathered his strength and smashed the man

again, one more time, square in the head.

The man rolled onto the floor, slumped on his

back.

Carmellini sat up, his breath coming

in

ragged gasps. Part of his face was numb, he was

drooling from a mighty punch to the mouth.

He forced himself to his knees. He pocketed the

sap, reached for the flashlight, which was lying on the

floor still lit. He played the light on the face

of his assailant.

San tana.

Oooh, damn!

He checked the pistol. He had fired at least

five shots. A couple of the spent brass were lying

near Santana, who had a bloody place on his

chest, one on his neck. Hit twice, at least.

Maybe one of the little .22 bullets would kill

him.

Maybe not.

Tommy Carmellini found to his

surprise that he didn't care one way or the

other.

He put the pistol back in its holster, wiped

his face with his shirt, and went back to the computer.

The combination was right there on the screen, all three

numbers. The dial wasn't moving.

He tried tiie handle, put some weight on it.

It moved.

The safe was open!

He wiped his face on his sleeve, willed himself

track to his task. First he stowed the computer and

sensors and telescoping rod hi his duffel bag.

Then he opened the safe, examined its contents with

Santana's flashlight, then turned on his headband

light.

Lots

of papers, files, two shelves of them. The top

shelf consisted of files on people, each file had a

person's name. These were the files he had come to find.

He raked these into his duffel bag.

Ah, on the second shelf... files labeled with

numbers.

He looked inside one. Engineering drawings,

possibly of a warhead...

He dumped everything that looked interesting

into his duffel bag, including the stack of files

on Vargas's desk.

Oh, here was a file about supplies from a Miami

laboratory supply house ... one about

susceptibility studies, lethality, vaccines

... he stuffed all these in the bag, began checking

another handful.

The hell with it! He would take everything..the files

on the bottom shelf might prove as interesting as

those on the top. The bag would be heavy, but he could

lift it. He transferred the files to the bag as

quickly as he could.

When he had all the files, he hoisted the bag

experimentally. Eighty, pounds, at least. Room

for a few more things...

What else did Vargas keep in his safe? A

small laptop computer. Well, he certainly

didn't need that anymore. Into the bag with it.

He was pawing through one of the side drawers when he

sensed movement behind him.

As he turned Santana's fist grazed his jawhis

turn had been just enough to save his life. The headband and

light flew away, somewhere, the little beam flashing around

crazily.

He groped for his sap, swung it in a

roundhouse right and connected with bone.

Santana went sideways to the floor.

No time for this! The man is too dangerous!

He pulled out the Ruger, thumbed off the safety and

was ready when Santana came off the floor again.

The pistol coughed.

Santana's momentum drove his body forward and he

collapsed against Carmellini's feet.

The American stepped around the body. He put the

pistol away, stowed the headband light, zipped the

duffel bag closed.

After a quick last look around, Tommy Carmellini

went

to the door, made sure it would lock behind him. He

came back for the duffel bag, hoisted it to his

left shoulder.

Out in the dark hall, he pulled the door shut,

made sure it was locked, then walked quickly down the

dark hallway for the stairs.

Tommy Carmellini held the Ruger down by his

leg as he descended the stair and walked across the

lobby toward the shadowy figure standing hi the

doorway.

As he walked the lights came on. Instantly an

alarm sounded, loud enough to wake the dead.

He squinted against the light. That was Chance standing hi

the doorway.

"Into the car, quickly nowea"...Chance said. The alarms were

wailing and every light hi the building was on, wiuThat not

a soul in sight. If they could be gone before the

lieutenant and his men got back up here, he

wouldn't have to kill themthey couldn't have seen his face very

well in the darkness.

His watch read 2:04 A.m.

Chance stood in the doorway with euphoria flooding

over him while Carmellini stowed the bag hi the

backseat of the car, got into the driver's seat, and

started the engine. Three long strides, he jerked

open the passenger's door and jumped inside, and

Carmellini fed gas.

The lights hi the rest of the city were still off, however, so

when the car pulled away from the building the night

swallowed it.

"What did you get?"

"I got the safe opentook two drawers full of

files, everything made of paper that was in there, some

files from a desk. Got a laptop, too."

"Well done."

"Someone came hi while I was there. Santana,

I think. Left him for dead."

"I didn't take the time to check, and to be honest,

I really don't care one way or the other. I

put six bullets into the son of a bitch and whaled

on him a while with the sap. If he isn't dead he

ought to be."

Chance flipped on the interior light of the car, just

long enough to check Carmellini's face. "Looks like

he got a piece or two of you."

"Oh, yeah. He was damned quick."

"Did he get a look at your face?"

"I don't think so. Pretty dark. And he's

probably dead. Don't sweat it."

Chance grunted and stared out the window at the dark,

decaying city.

The voyagers on the

Angel del Mar

saw a ship during the night. It came out of one

dark comer of the universe and passed within a half mile

of the derelict as the people aboard shouted and waved the

single working flashlight.

The ship was a freighter of some type, huge, with

lights strung all over the topside and

superstructure. It raced through their world and disappeared

into the void as quickly as it came, leaving the people gasping

on deck, exhausted, starved, devoid of

hope.

A child had died earlier in the evening, just at sunset,

and some of the people aboard had wanted to eat it "She is

beyond caring, and her body can give us life,"eaone man

said, a sentiment several agreed with.

The old fisherman went below to tell Ocho, who was

taking his turn on the pump, which meant he had

to pump out the water that had accumulated because the man

before him could not keep abreast of it, as well as the

water that came in on his watch. He was on the ragged

edge of total exhaustion, but he listened to the old

fisherman as he struggled with the pump handle.

"Maybe..."...Ocho began, but the old man would not

listen.

"To eat her would be sacrilege, the moral death of

every

onp who tastes her flesh or watches others eat

it. All flesh must die, but to face God with that on

our souls would be unforgivable. Come with me!

Come!"

He half dragged Ocho up the ladder. Together they

swung hard fists left and right, reached the corpse,

and tossed it into the sea.

In the fading light the old fisherman stood with his

back to the wheelhouse and shouted at the

others, some too weak to move. He damned them,

dared them, kicked at those who came too close,

punched one man so hard he nearly went overboard.

The child's body floated, supported by the great vast

moving ocean, just out of reach, moving with the rise and

fall of the swells. Some of the people looked at it,

others refused to. When the last of the light faded the

body disappeared into the total darkness.

Ocho went back down the ladder to the hold, which

reeked of vomit and filth. He worked the pump

handle like an automaton.

Finally the fisherman relieved him, helped him up

the ladder.

He was lying by a scupper when the ship went by. He

roused himself, stood with a hand on the rail, tried

to shout and found he had no voice left.

Then someone tried to push him overboard.

There was no mistake. The hard shove in the back,

the continuing pressure.

Only his raw strength saved him. Ocho turned and

swung blindly, felt his fist connect with cartilage

and bone, swung several more times before the man went

down."

Ocho collapsed from the exertion. He crawled

forward, intent on beating the man as long as

he had strength to swing his fists, but Dora was there,

sobbing, and stopped him.

"No, no, no, my Godff"...she howled. "You are

killing him!"

"He tried to shove me over."

"Oh, damn you, Ocho. If it weren't for you, we

would be safe in Cuba."

"Me?"

"You were Ms ticket out. You! This is your fault."

"And you are blameless. With the baby in your body you

risked your life."

"I am not pregnant! I have never been

pregnant! He made me tell you I was so you would

come."...And she dissolved in sobbing.

Ocho lay in the darkness trying to think, trying to see

the boat and the people as God must see them, looking down

from above. His

Fortunately rain fell occasionally, enough to fill the

bucket and let people drink. Maybe God was sending

the showers.

He was starving, though, and oh so tired.

His whole life had dissolved into nothing and was soon

to end, and he didn't care. He tried to tell

Dora that it didn't matter but he couldn't and she was

sobbing hysterically, and in truth he really

didn't care.

After another turn at the pump, Ocho came back

on deck and looked for Diego and Dora, to say

somethinghe didn't know what, but something that would make

their burdens easier to carry.

But Diego wasn't there. He wasn't in the hold

and he wasn't in the wheelhouse and he wasn't on

deck. Ocho scanned the sea, checking in all

directions, looking for a head bobbing amid the heaving

swells.

Dora was curled

in

a ball near the bow. He shook her.

"Where's Diego?"

She. had a dazed look on her face, as if she

didn't understand the words. He repeated the question several

times.

She looked around, trying to understand.

"I do not see himea"...Ocho said, trying to explain.

"Did he fall overboard?"

She stared at him with eyes that refused to focus.

Her face was vacant, blank. Finally her eyes

focused.

"He climbed the rail last night.

Jumped in the ocean."

Ocho looked again on both sides of the boat,

staggered to the port side so he could look aft past

the wheelhouse. Then he returned.

She was lying down again, curled up, her chin against a

knee.

He left her there, lay down and tried to rest.

"Who did this to you?".

Alejo Vargas asked the question of Colonel

Santana while he lay on a gurney in the

hospital emergency room being propped for

surgery. He had four bullets in him and a wicked

wound on his forehead where a bullet had ricochetted

off his skull. His jaw and one cheekbone were

severely swollen, his nose smashed, he had lost

two teeth, and he obviously had a concussion. The

pupil in his right eye was dilated and refused

to focus.

"I don't knowea"...Santana managed. He tried

to swallow, almost choked on his tongue. After gagging

several times, he seemed to relax.

"American?"

"I do not know. Nothing was said, it was dark. He was

waiting behind the door when I went in."

"One of the bullets penetrated the wall of

his chest, Ministerea"...the doctor said. "We must get

it out and stop the hemorrhaging. He needs a

transfusion and rest."

Vargas left the emergency room. The car drove

him back to the ministry and he took the elevator

to his office.

The workers had the worst of the damage cleaned up.

Still, the door to the safe was standing open and the drawers

within were empty.

The priceless files on the generals and top

government people that had taken twenty years to compile,

gonelike a storm in the night. Every sin known to man

was somewhere in one of those files: marital infidelity,

theft, rape, incest, sodomy, even murder. Those

files were the key to

his power, to his ability to make things happen anywhere

hi Cuba. And now they were gone.

Hector Sedano was his fast suspect. Of course

Hector himself was hi La Cabana, but someone could

have robbed the safe on his behalf.

And it could be one of the generals, or Admiral

Delgado. Any one of those ambitious fools.

Raul Castro? A possibility, but he discounted

it. Then the fact that he thought Raul Castro an

unlikely suspect made him

suspicious. He would have Raul checked, followed

day and night, everyone he spoke to would be

scrutinized.

Truly there was much to do. Much to do.

The electrical outage made the burglary

possible. Four towers down, two dead

saboteurs.

There was a trail out there, and some diligent

investigating would eventually lead him to the man or men

who did this crime.

Not that it would do any good. Whoever had those files would

undoubtedly destroy them immediately.

All his plans, all that work... up hi smoke.

Alejo Vargas didn't believe hi

coincidences. Whoever robbed that safe made

extensive preparations. This was no spur-of-the-moment

thingthe robbery was carefully, meticulously planned.

He looked again at the safe. Not a mark on it.

Someone had dialed the combination. He had heard that such

things were possible, but he had never seen it done.

Nor heard of it being done hi Cuba. Yesterday

he would have said there was not a man hi Cuba with that kind

of talent

And the files on the biological program were gone.

The day after the break-in at the lab.

The lab break-in wasn't Hector's stylehe

would have no reason to burgle the place, nor would

anyone else there was nothing there to steal.

Except poliomyelitis viruses. Would

Hector gain politi-

cal advantage by publicizing the biological

weapons program, proving its existence?

The Americans...

Alejo Vargas stood looking at his empty

safe, thinking about Americans.

The Americans were a possibility, he

reluctantly concluded.

He got a magnifying glass from the top drawer of

his desk, examined the door of the safe as carefully

as he could.

There were marks, scratches, several together. He could

see them. But how long had they been there? What were

they made by?

There was no one to tell him, and he decided finally that

perhaps it didn't matter. The people who opened this safe

and stole the keys to Cuba had brought down the power

grid hi central Havana. That was where the trail

began.

He spent a few seconds hi contemplation of his

revenge when he caught these men.

"Minister, here is Lieutenant G6mez, who

had the duty last night."

"You saw these men, G6mez?"

'Two men arrived just seconds after the lights went

out, sir. I saw the colonel for a few seconds

hi a flashlight beam. The driver, no."

"What did this man look like?"

"He was tall, not fat"

"His accent?"

"None that I noticed, sir."

"Come, come, Lieutenant. Was he from Cuba, from

Havana or Oriente, or did he speak

Castilian Spanish?"

"From Havana, I thought, sir. He sounded like you and

me."

"What did he say?"

"That we should start the emergency generator."

"So you did?"

"Yes, sir. Without power the alarms were disabled, we

could not talk to each other on the telephone, the

security

of-the building was compromised. My men and I went

to the basement and worked on the generator. I came

back upstairs once and reported to the colonel,

told him we were having difficulties; he

said he had faith. When we got the generator going

and went back upstairs, the colonel and his driver

and vehicle were gone."

"You had never seen this colonel before?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir."" "Would you recognize him

if you saw him again?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

No, he wouldn't, Vargas decided. If this

colonel thought there was a glimmer of a chance

Lieutenant G6mez would recognize him then

or later, he would have killed him. G6mez was

alive because he posed no threat.

Vargas dismissed G6mez and called in his

department heads to give them orders.

With no ceremony and no conversation, Mercedes

Sedano was released from the presidential palace.

A butler came to the door, suggested she pack.

The electrical power was still off. It had been off

when she awoke this morning, and she was given stale

bread and water for breakfast.

She put the clothes she wished to keep in two

shopping bags that were on the floor of the closet,

sandwiched the cassettes in between them, and took a last

look around the apartment. The butler returned five

minutes later and led her out. Without

electricity the palace looked dark and grim.

She wanted desperately to be gone, to bring an end

to this phase of her life. She bit her lip to keep

herself under control.

The butler paused in an empty hallway, looked

around to ensure that there were no maids about, then

whispered, "They've arrested your brother-in-law

Hector Sedano. He is in La Cabana."

Then he took her to the door of the palace, said a

barely audible good-bye, and closed the door behind

her.

She walked past the guards and continued down the

street to the bus stop. The electrical power

seemed off everywhere, yet the streets of Havana

hustled and bustled as usual. Didn't they know

Fidel was dead?

She dared not ask.

On the bus she saw a newspaper lying on a

nearby seat and scanned the front page. The

usual stuff, nothing about Fidel.

So they had not announced his death.

She transferred to another bus, left her clothes

with a friend in a shop on the Malecon. The shop was

closed because of the lack of electricity, but Mercedes

tapped on the window until her friend came

to open the door.

Her friend was very agitated. She drew Mercedes into the

tiny dark storeroom. "I have heard they arrested

Hector. What does it mean?"

"I do not knowea"...Mercedes told her, shaking her

head.

"Hector's friends are on fireea"...sd the

shopkeeper, "and he has many, many friends. I heard

there was a riot in Mariel after he was arrested. The

newspapers have nothing on it, yet the story is on

everyone's lips. People are coming in, asking me about it,

because they know I know you."

Mercedes assured the woman she knew nothing, that

she was as mystified as everyone on the street.

She rode buses through the city to La Cabana.

The guard at the gate recognized her name and sent

a man to fetch the duty officer, a Captain

Franqui. He treated her with respect, took

her to his office, a dark cubicle near the gate,

and sent a note to the commandante. While the note was

being delivered he apologized for the lack of

electricity. "It has not been off this long in

years."

In five minutes she and Franqui were in the

commandante's office. He was a

heavy-set, balding officer who looked as if he were

frightened of his own shadow.

"I have my ordersea"...he said. "I cannot admit you.

He is to see no one."

"Fidel sent meea"...she said simply, without

inflection. "Hector is my brother-in-law."

The commandante looked as if wild horses were trying

to tear him in half. Obviously he knew of the

relationship between Mercedes and caret Fidel. The

blood drained from his florid comface as he weighed

his fear of Fidel against his fear of Vargas.

Captain Franqui understood the commandante's

dilemma. "Perhaps, if I may be so bold, sir,

it might be best if you were indisposed, at lunch

perhaps, and I acted on my own initiative in light

of the lady's impeccable credentials."

The commandante grasped at this straw. "I cannot be

everywhere or make every decision, can I?"

"No,

sit.

If you will excuse us"..."...Captain Franqui took

Mercedes's elbow and steered her expertly from the

office into the hallway.

"I myself am an admirer of Hector

Sedanoea"...Captain Franqui confided as they

walked. "He is a great patriot and a man of

God. Surely he will serve Cuba well in the

years ahead."

After several minutes of platitudes, she found

herself standing hi front of Hector's cell

in

the isolation wing. None of the other cells contained people.

Captain Franqui disappeared, leaving the two of

them alone.

"Are they listening"..."...she whispered.

"Probably notea"...he said. "The electricity is

off, and they would need it to listen."

"How long*h you been here?"

"Two days. For two days I've been sitting

alone hi this hole. No one comes to see me."

'They will admit no one. I told them Fidel had

sent me, and the commandante was afraid to refuse."

"Ah, yes, Fidel."

"He is dead."

"I am sorry, Mercedesea"...he said softly, so

softly she almost missed his words.

"It had to happen. He and I both knew it,

accepted it."

Hector sighed. "That explains my

arrest, then."

'Two days ago."

"The cancer finally, eh?"

"Poison! He poisoned himself rather than make a

tape naming Vargas as his successor."

Hector crossed himself.

"It was not a sinea"...she said, desperate to explain.

"He merely speeded things up a few days."

Hector leaned forward, let his forehead touch the

cool steel bars.

"I heard there was a riot in Mariel after you were

arrested."...Her voice was very soft, a whisper in

church.

"I did not know that."

"A fr'told me."

"Have you heard from Ocho?"

"Nothing. Is he not at home?"

"He went on a boat with some others. They were going

to America."

"I have heard nothing."

Hector sagged, fought to stay erect. He looked

so ... so different from Fidel, Mercedes thought.

He was not tall, vigorous, oozing machismo. And

yet Fidel thought Hector could lead Cuba!

She got as close to the bars as she could, and

whispered, "I need to talk to the Americans as

soon as possible. Should I see the little man you

gave the Swiss bank account numbers to? The

stadium keeper?"

"He might betray you. He talks to Vargas

too. I tried to frighten him, and may have succeeded

too well."

"Who, then?"

"Go to the American mission. Ask for the cultural

aide, I think his name is Bouchard. He is

CIA, I believe."

"Fidel signed bank transfer orders for

Maximo, who went flying off to Switzerland, just as

we thought he would. I have not heard if he got the

money."

"He will not come back if he gets itea"...Hector

said.

"Maximo would steal itea"...she agreed. "But do you think

the Americans will ever give the money back?"

"I have heard their courts are fair. I would rather try

to get the money back from them than from Maximo."

She nodded at that.

"Why do you want to talk to the Americans

now"..."...Hector asked.

She told him.

The secret police had the bodies of the two

saboteurs laid out in the basement of police

headquarters when Vargas saw them. Two

Latin-looking males who had spent many years in the

United States, from the look of their dental work.

Exiles, probably.

Vargas examined their clothes, which were in a pile, and

stirred through the contents of the van. He examined the

chemical timers and C-4 shaped charges, the guns

and electrical tape, and tossed everything back on

the table.

CIA.

No doubt in bis mind.

Four extra-high-voltage towers had collapsed,

killing power to the two substations that fed central

Havana and the government office buildings located

there.

A neat and tidy operation.

And as soon as the power went off, a team of

burglars entered the Interior Ministry and robbed the

safe in his office, carrying away files that he had

spent twenty years collecting.

The Americans.

And he had not an iota of proof, nor would he ever

get any.

The burglars also stole bis laptop computer, and the

thought of its loss gave him pause. Certainly not

as valuable as the files, the laptop had many things

on it he wished the Americans did not have.

He had used the computer to derive the

trajectories for the missiles" guidance

systems, which had to be reprogram-

med when the warheads were changed, the new biological

warheads being significantly lighter than the old

nuclear ones. Still, if the Americans didn't know

about the missiles, perhaps they wouldn't pay much

attention to that file.

What the burglary showed, Alejo Vargas

concluded, was that time was short. The Americans could

move fast and decisivelyto win the game he was

going to have to move faster.

I'm ready,

he told himself.

Now is the hour.

"I am Bouchard, the cultural attache."

Mercedes Sedano smiled, shook the offered hand.

"Please sit down."...Bouchard looked

embarrassed, as if he rarely entertained

visitors in this small office, which was packed with

Cuban magazines and newspapers. Four

candles sat atop the piles. "The power is still

out," he said by way of explanation. "And the emergency

generator ran out of fuel an hour ago."

"I don't know how to begin, Doctorea"...she said.

"I am not a real doctorea"...he said

apologetically. "I am a scholar."

"My brother-in-law is Hector

Sedanoea"...she explained. "He said I should come

to you."

"My work is strictly cultural, senora. I

work for the American state department studying the

culture of Cuba. I cannot imagine how I could be

of service to you, or anybody else. I write

studies of Cuban music, literature,

drama...."

"I know nothing about die branches of the American

governmentea"...she said.

Bouchard smiled. "I know very little myselfea"...he

confided.

"You still haven't asked why I am here."

"I ask now, sefiora. What may I do for

you?"

"My brother-in-law, Hector Sedano, says

you work for the CIA. He"

Bouchard was horrified. His hands came

up, palms out.

"Senora, you have been severely misinformed. As I

have just explained, I am a scholar who"

"Yes, yes. I understand. But I have a problem that"

He clapped his hands over his ears. "No, no,

no. You have made a great mistakeea"...he said.

She sat calmly, waiting for him to lower his hands.

When he saw that she was not going to speak, he did so.

"I must show you my workea"...Bouchard said, and dug into a

drawer. He came up with a handful of paper, which he

thrust at her. "I recently completed a major

study of"

She refused to touch the paper. "Fidel Castro

is deadea"...she said.

Bouchard froze. After a few seconds he

remembered the paper in his hand and laid it on top

of the nearest pile.

"I was there when he died. We were filming a statement

to the Cuban people, a political will, if you

please."...She produced two videotapes from her

large purse and laid them on the nearest pile.

"He died before he finished his speechea"...she

explained. "Which is inconvenient and, in a larger

sense, tragic."

"I

assure

you, Sefiora Sedano, that I am a poor

scholar, mediocre hi every sense, employed here hi

Cuba because I tired of the publish-or-perish

imperative of the academic world. My work is of little

import to the United States government or anyone

else. still

do not work for the CIA.

There has been some mistake."

Mercedes maintained a polite silence until he

ran out of words, then she said, "Fidel and I

watched an American movie a few months ago,

about dinosaurs in a parkan extraordinary story and

an extraordinary film. We marveled at the

magic that could make dinosaurs so lifelike upon the

screen. It was almost as if the moviemakers had some

dinosaurs to film. Perhaps the magic had something to do

with computers. However they did it, they made something

mat had been dead a very long time come back

to life."

Bouchard didn't know what to say. Agency

regulations did not permit him to tell anyone

outside the agency who

his employer was. He twisted his hands as

he tried to decide how he should handle this woman who

refused to listen to his denials.

"Did you say something"..."...she asked.

"I don't like moviesea"...Bouchard muttered. "There

are no good actors these days."

"Perhaps not livingea"...sd Mercedes Sedano. "But you

must admit the magicians have given new life to some

dead ones. You and your friends could perform a great

service for Cuba if you would take these

videotapes to the moviemakers and let them bring

Fidel back to life. For just a little while."

Bouchard picked up the cassettes,- held them in

his hands as he examined them.

"I dissuppose the cultural attach caret might

be able to pass these things alongea"...Bouchard admitted.

"What is it you wish Fidel had lived to say?"

Mercedes nodded. She looked Bouchard straight in

the eyes and told him.

Maximo Sedano huddled in bis great padded leather

chair at the Finance Ministry staring out at the

Havana skyline. He took another sip of

rum, eased the position of his injured hand. He was

holding it pointed straight up. The doctor who

set the broken bones in bis fingers assured him

elevating the hand would help keep the

swelling down.

That pig Santana! He whipped out his pistol and

smashed it down on the fingers of Maximo's left

hand so quickly Maximo didn't even think of jerking

it away. Three broken fingers.

Then the son of a bitch laughed! And Vargas

laughed.

Vargas had whispered in his ear: "You aren't going

to be the next president of Cuba, Maximo. You

have no allies. Delgado and Alba will obey me

to then- dying day, as you will. You have a wife and daughter

and your health. Be content with that."

He said nothing.

"Your brother Hector is in prison charged with

sedition. I suggest you meditate upon that fact."

Maximo sipped some more ram.

His fingers hurt like hell. The doctor gave him a

local anesthetic and a half dozen pills when he

set the fingers, but now the anesthetic was wearing off and the

pills weren't doing much good.

He probably shouldn't be drinking rum while taking

these pills, but what the hell. A man has to die

only once.

Where was the $53 million?

Somewhere on the other side of the black hole that was the

Swiss banking system.

Face facts, Maximo. You can kiss those bucks

good-bye. Those dollars might as well be on the

back side of the moon.

He spent some time dwelling on what might have been

he was only humanbut after a while those dreams

faded. The reality was the pain in his hand, and the fact that

he was stuck hi this Third World hellhole and would

soon be out of a job. Whatever government followed

Fidel would appoint a new finance minister.

He had no chance of succeeding Castro, and he let

go of that fantasy too. He didn't have the allies

hi high places, he wasn't well enough known, and

if he had been he would be in a cell beside Hector

this very minute.

Hector's plight didn't cause bun much

concern. He and Hector had never been close, had

never had much in common. Well, to be frank, they

loathed each other.

A pigeon landed on the ledge outside his window.

He watched it idly. It searched the ledge for

food, found none, then took eff.

Maximo watched it. The pigeon circled the

square hi front of the ministry and landed on

a statue that stood near the front door. Maximo

had never liked the statue, some Greek goddess with a

sword. Still, it gave the building a certain tone,

so he had never ordered it moved.

Statues. At least he got the goddess instead of

that

larger-than-life bust of Fidel that the Ministry of

Agriculture

He stared at the goddess. She was made of

bronze. Some kind of metal that had turned green

as the rain and sun and salt from the sea worked on it.

The bust of Fidel in front of the Ministry of

Agriculture was of course manufactured and

erected after the revolution.

So were the statues in the Plaza de Revolucion.

And some of the statues in Old Havana, at the

Museo de Arte Colonial, at the Catedral

de San Cristobal de la Havana, on some

of the minor squares.

After

the revolution! After the government collected all the

gold pesos, or before?

The Museum of the Revolution! The old

presidential palace was converted to a propaganda

temple that would prove to all generations the

venality of Batista, the dictator Fidel had

overthrown. Maximo recalled reading somewhere that

Fidel had personally supervised the renovation and

conversion of the old building.

Thirty-seven tons of gold. Fidel had

squirreled it away somewhere.

What he needed to do was go to the Museum of the

Revolution, lock himself in a room with the collection

of Havana newspapers. After the revolution, after

the gold was collected, what was Fidel doing?

Thirty-seven tons of gold.

"One sample vial from the Cuban lab contained a

new, super-infectious strain of poliomyelitis.

The viruses are so hot they kill in seconds."

The members of the National Security Council

didn't say anything.

"The scientists said they never saw anything like itea"...the

national security adviser continued. "The four

sample vials contained three different strains of the

polio virus. Two of the vials contained the same

type of virus."

"Is the vaccination we were all given as children

effective against these strains"..."...The chairman of the

joint chiefs asked this question.

"Apparently jiot. The scientists will

need more time to verify that, but apparently ... no."

The president looked glum. "Talk about a

choice. We can wait until the Cubans use that

stuff on us or we can bomb the lab right now."

"No, sirea"...the chairman said. 'There is no

guarantee a bomb would kill that virus. Bombing

the lab would "probably just release the viruses to the

atmosphere and kill everyone in Cuba who happened

to be downwind."

The silence that followed that remark was broken by the

secretary of state, who asked, "Do the scientists

have an estimate on how long those viruses can live

outside the lab?"

"Not yetea"...the national security adviser replied.

He took a deep breath and referred back to his

notes. "Here is the situation in Cuba as we

believe it to be: We received a report two hours

ago from our man in Havana who says he was told

earlier today that Fidel Castro is dead. He is

sending some videotapes in the diplomatic pouch."

"Dead, huh"..."...sd the president. "I'll believe

it when they put his corpse on display in a tomb

on the Plaza de Revolucion."

Someone tittered.

The national security adviser continued

to read from his notes. "Review of the documents from the

safe of the secret police chief, Alejo

Vargas, indicates that the Cubans have installed

biological warheads on intermediate-range

ballistic missiles."

"What?"

the president demanded. He pounded on the table with the

flat of his hand to silence everyone else. In the

silence that followed, he roared, "Where in hell did

those people get ballistic missiles?"

The national security adviser looked like he was in

severe pain. "From the Russians, sir. In

1962. Apparently the

STEPHEN COONTS

Russians left some behind after the Cuban missile

crisis. You may recall that Castro refused

to let the UN inspection team into the country to verify

that all the missiles had been removed."

"How good is this information?""...The man who sent it is

absolutely reliable."...The president mouthed a

profane oath, which the chairman of the joint chiefs

thought a succinct summation of the whole situation.

In a country as poor as Cuba safe houses were

hard to come by. The one that William

Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini found themselves in

was an abandoned monastery on a promontory of land

on the south coast of the island. Surrounded by tidal

flats and dense vegetation, the sprawling one-story

building was an occasional refuge for drug

smugglers and young lovers, who had left their trash

strewn about. The rotten thatched roof remained

intact over just one room, the kitchen. A roaring

fire burned in the fireplace, which apparently the

monks had used primarily for cooking.

From the window three fishing boats were visible,

wooden boats with a single mast, manned by one or

two men. The crew of two of the boats were rigging

trot lines, the other was hauling in a net. Chance

examined each through binoculars. They looked harmless

enoughhe doubted if any of the boats had an engine

or radio.

"What do you think"..."...Carmellini asked.

"We have a little time, but I don't know how much."

"Guess it depends on how efficient the

secret police and the military are."

"Ummea"...Chance grunted, and after one more sweep of

everything in sight, put down the binoculars.

Tommy Carmellini sat feeding sheets of paper

from the secret police files into the fire

as fast as they would burn. He merely scanned the

pages as he ripped them from the files and tossed them

into the flames.

"Vargas and bis guys were certainly

thoroughea"...Car-

mellini commented. "They looked under every rock."

"And found every slimy thing that walks or

crawlsea"...Chance agreed. Vargas's laptop was

on, so Chance resumed his examination of the files.

"Sort of like J. Edgar Hoover."

"Secret police are pretty much alike the world

overea"...Chance muttered. He moved the cursor to the

next file on the list and called it up.

"How many missiles are there on this

island"..."...Carmellini asked as he tore paper.

"I have found six missile files, so far. There

may be moreI see some references to material that

doesn't seem to be on this computer."

"Six? With locations?"

"Names only. Every missile has a name: Miami,

Atlanta, Jacksonville, Charleston, New

Orleans, and Tampa."

"What about Mobile?"'

- "Don't see it on here."

"Birmingham, Orlando, the army bases in

Alabama?"

"Nothing."

"I find it hard to believe that in the decades since

1962, the Cubans have managed to keep the secret

of their ballistic missiles."

Chance didn't reply. He had never agreed with the

agency's spending priorities, which were heavily

slanted toward reconnaissance satellites. The

people in Washington were sold on high-tech computer and

sensor networks for the collection of intelligence.

Hardware and software didn't turn traitor and were

easy to justify to the bean counters. The spymasters

seemed to have lost sight of a basic truth: networks

could only collect the information their sensors' were

designed to obtain. And they could be fooled. If

garbage goes in, garbage comes out.

Ah, well. The world keeps turning.

"How long is that going to take"..."...Chance asked,

referring to the files and the fire.

"Couple hours at this rate."

Chance glanced at his watch. A few minutes after

one o'clock in the afternoon. The rendezvous with the submarine was

set for ten o'clock tonight, almost nine hours away. "If

we have to run for it, we'll take everything

we haven't burned."

He and Carmellini and die four U.s. Navy

SEAL'S on guard in the grasses and bushes out

front would try to escape if the Cubans

attacked the place. Two speedboats were fueled

and ready inside die old boathouse, and a

submarine would meet diem fifty miles south.

Unfortunately he had no way of knowing if die

submarine was already lying submerged at die

rendezvous position or if the skipper planned

to arrive punctually. If he was already there, Chance,

Carmellini, and die SEAL'S could leave now. If

die sub wasn't at die rendezvous, die two

boats would have to spend die afternoon and evening rolling hi

die swell, hoping and praying die Cuban Navy

didn't come over die horizon.

We'll wait,

Chance decided, glancing at his watch again, though

Lord knows die waiting was difficult.

It would be a serious mistake to underestimate

Alejo Vargas. The Cuban secret police

had over forty years of practice finding and arresting

people who sneaked onto die islandone had to assume they

were reasonably good at it.

Chance didn't want to get into a

firefight with die Cuban military or secret

police. Leaving a body behind would be bad, and leaving

a live person to be captured and tortured would be

absolute disaster.

If die Cubans came riding over die

hill, Chance and his entourage were leaving as quickly as

possible. They could take their chances on die open

sea. That decision made, Chance turned his attention

back to die computer screen hi front of him.

Two months ago when he and Carmellini were handed

this mission, William Henry Chance would not have bet

a plugged nickel they could pull it off. Polish

die Spanish hi

over a hundred hours of classes, be in the right

place at the right time when the power went off, break

into Alejo Vargas's safe in secret-police

headquarters, carry out the files that Vargas had

spent twenty years accumulating, the files he could

trade for political support after Castro's

death.

Amazingly, they had pulled it off. Every file that

went into the flames was one Vargas would never use.

Chance glanced at Carmellini, who was using a stick

to stir the fire, keep the paper burning.

Yep, they had pulled it off. And stumbled

upon a biological weapons program and

Fidel's collection of old Soviet ballistic

missiles.

Six missiles. No locations.

The locations must be well camouflaged or the

satellite reconnaissance people would have seen them long

ago. On the other hand, if they knew what they were

looking for...

Chance went to the door, called softly to the SEAL

lieutenant. dis"...Mr. Fitzgerald, would you set

up die satellite telephone again?"

"Of course. Take about five minutes."

"Thank you."

While the lieutenant was getting the set turned on

and acquiring the corn satellite, Chance continued

to check the computer. When he hit a file labeled

"Trajectories"...he sensed he was onto something

important.

The file was a series of mathematical

calculations, complex formulas. Hmmm...

Let's see, if one could figure out where the

warheads were aimed, then one could use the known

trajectory to work back to the launch site. That's

right, isn't it?

"Mr. Chance, they're on."...The

lieutenant handed him the satellite phone.

In Washington, D.c., the director of the CIA

and the national security adviser listened without comment as

the voice of the agent in Cuba came over the speaker

phone. He gave them the news as quickly and

succinctly as he

could. They had the secret-police files, were

burning them now though the task would take several more

hours, they had a computer containing a file of what

appeared to be missile-trajectory calculations,

and there were at least six ballistic missiles in

Cuba, maybe more. Chance gave the men in

Washington the names of the missiles.

"Well doneea"...the director said, high praise from

that taciturn public servant.

When the connection was broken, the national security

adviser and the CIA director sat silently,

lost in thought. The spymaster was thinking about Alejo

Vargas and the possibility he might seize control

of the government in Cuba upon the death of Castro. The

other man was thinking about ballistic missiles and

microscopic viruses of poliomyelitis.

"Another Cuban missile crisisea"...muttered the

adviser disgustedly.

The CIA director grinned. "Why

don't you look at the silver lining of this cloud for a

change? Fate has just presented us with a rare

opportunity to clean out a local cesspool. We

ought to be down on our knees giving thanks."

The adviser didn't see it that way. He knew the

president regarded the upcoming death of Castro as

a political opportunity, a chance to change the

relationship between Cuba and the United States and

escape the bitter past. Perhaps the president would

decide to just ignore the weapons, pretend they

didn't exist. Then he could hold out the olive

branch to the Cubans, get what he wanted from them,

get credit for progressive leadership from the

American electorate, and negotiate about the

weapons later.

Tommy Carmellini was burning the last of the files

when William Henry Chance noticed that two of the

fishing boats were no longer in sight. "When did they

leave"..."...he asked the naval officer, Lieutenant

Fitzgerald.

"Several hours ago, sir. I noticed one of them

going west

under sail then, but I confess I haven't been

paying much attention to the others."

Carmellini checked his watch5:30

P.m. Still three or four hours of daylight

left.

"Anything stirring out here"..."...Chance asked.

"No, sir. Pretty quiet. An old man and a

girl walked along the road toward the monastery about

three P.m., then turned and went back the way

they had come."

"Did they see your men?"

"No, sir." -

"Well..."...In truth, Chance was nervous. He

felt trapped, completely at the mercy of forces

beyond his control. He took a deep breath, tried

to relax as Carmellini stirred the ashes of the fire

to ensure that all the paper he had thrown in was totally

consumed.

"Would you like some MRE'S, sir"..."...the navy officer

asked. "My men and I are getting hungry."

Surprised at himself for not noticing his hunger

sooner, Chance said, "Why not"..."...He hadn't had a

bite since last night.

They were munching at the rations when a helicopter

came roaring down the coast from the west. The craft was

doing about eighty knots, Chance guessed, when it

went Over the old monastery. It continued west for a

half mile or so, then laid into a turn.

"Shitea"...sd Tommy Carmellini.

"Lieutenant, I think he's onto usea"...Chance

told the SEAL officer.

"If he is, his friends can't be far awayea"...the SEAL

said. Standing in the center of the room so he was hidden in

shadow, he used the binoculars to look at the

chopper.

"Two men, one looking at us with binoculars."

"Maybe it's time we set sailea"...Chance said as he

folded the laptop and zipped it into its soft carrying

bag. Then he put the whole thing in a waterproof

plastic bag, which he carefully sealed.

"Stay down, stay clear of the windowsea"...the

lieutenant

said, and darted out the door away from the chopper.

Chance and Carmellini sat on the floor with their

backs to the window. The chopper noise came closer

and closer, then seemed to stop. It sounded as if the

craft were hovering about a hundred feet to the east of the

crumbling building. The rotor wash was stirring the

remnants of the roof thatch that Chance could see.

Then he heard the sharp crack of a rifle. Two

more reports in quick succession. The tone of the

chopper's engine changed, then he heard the sound of the

crash.

He risked a peek out the window. The wreckage

of the helicopter lay on the rocks by the water's

edge. Amazingly, one of the rotor blades was still

attached to the head and turning slowly. A wisp of

smoke rose from the twisted metal and Plexiglas.

Chance could see the bodies of the two men slumped

motionless in what remained of the cockpit. As he

watched the wreckage broke into flames.

"Sorry about thatea"...the lieutenant said as he burst

into the room, "but the copilot was holding a radio

mike hi his hand. I think it's time we bid Cuba

a fond farewell."

"Let's goea"...Chance agreed.

The boats were fast, at least thirty knots. In

the swell of the open sea beyond the peninsula they bucked

viciously. Salt spray came back over the men

huddled behind the tiny windscreen every time the boat

buried its bow.

Chance settled back, wedged himself into place with the

computer on his lap.

They were well out to sea, heading due south, when a

Cuban gunboat rounded the eastern promontory and

gave chase. A puff of smoke came from the forward

deck gun and was swept away by the wind.

The splash was several hundred yards

short.

The lieutenant at the helm altered course

to put the gunboat dead astern. The Cuban

captain fired twice more; both rounds fell short.

Then he apparently decided to save his ammunition.

The boats ran on to the southwest.

Tommy Carmellini caught Chance's eye and gave

him a huge grin.

Yeah, baby!

The distance between the speedboats and the gunboat slowly

widened over the next hour. After a while the

gunboat was only visible as

a.

black spot on the horizon when the boat topped

a swell. As the rim of the sun touched the sea, the

Americans realized the crew of the gunboat had

given up and turned back toward-the north.

Then they heard the jets. Two swept-wing fighters

dropping down astern, spreading out as they came racing

hi, one after each boat.

"MiGo-19'sea"...the lieutenant shouted. "Hang

on tight."

The shells hit the sea behind the boat and marched toward

it as quick as thought. Lieutenant Fitzgerald spun

the helm, the boat tilted crazily, and the

impact splashes from the strafing run missed

to starboard.

The jet that strafed Chance's boat pulled out right

over the boat, no more than fifty feet up. The

thunder of the engines was deafening.

The jet made a climbing turn to the left, a

long, lazy loop that took it back for another

strafing run. His wingman stayed hi trail behind him.

"Turn west, into the sunea"...Chance shouted

to Fitzgerald, who complied. The other boat did the

same. The boats came out of their turns with the

sun's orb dead ahead, a ball of fire touching the

ocean.

The jets behind overshot the run-in line, so they

made a turn away from the boats, letting the distance

lengthen, as they worked back to the dead astern position.

Fitzgerald handed Chance his M-16. "As he

pulls out overhead, give him the whole magazine

full automatic."

Chance nodded and lay down in the boat.

As the jets thundered down, Fitzgerald turned the

boat ninety degrees left, then straightened. The

MiGo's left wing dropped as he swung the nose

out to lead the crossing boat. He steepened his dive.

As the muzzle flashes appeared on

his wing root, Fitzgerald spun the helm like a

man possessed to bring the boat back hard east,

into the attacker.

The shell splashes missed left this time: Chance

let go with the M-16 pointing straight up, in the

hope the MiGo would fly through the barrage.

Whether any of his bullets hit the jet as it

slashed overhead, he couldn't tell. The plane

pulled out with its left wing down about thirty

degrees, but its nose never came above the

horizon. Perhaps the sun dead ahead on the

horizon disoriented the pilot. The left roll

continued as the plane descended toward the sea, then it

hit with a surprisingly small splash. Just like that, it

was gone.

The other jet was climbing nicely. The pilot had

found his target: the other speedboat was upside down

in the sea.

Fitzgerald turned toward the upset boat, kept

his speed up.

The wingman took his timehe must realize this would be the

last strafing run because the light was failing, and perhaps

he was running low on fuel.

He came off the juice, kept the power back, so

on this pass he was doing no more than 250

knots, a pleasant maneuvering speed.

Fitzgerald turned his boat so that he was heading

disstraight for the jet. He had the throttle wide

open. The jet steepened his dive.

The pilot held his fire and fed in forward stick.

Fitzgerald spun the helm as far as it would go and the

boat laid over on its beam in a turn.

The jet didn't shoot, but began pulling out.

William Henry Chance let go with a whole

magazine.

Clbser and closer the plane dropped toward the

sea, the nose still coming up, contrails swirling off the

wingtips from the G-loads. The belly of the MiGo

almost kissed the water, came within a hair's

breadth, and then the jet was climbing into the sky

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

letter requesthag retirement. Then he signed both

letters and put his pen back hi his pocket.

"... our willingness to work with the new

government. In fact, I think this would be an

excellent time to end the American embargo of

Cuba...."...The national security adviser was

talking, apparently reciting a speech he had

rehearsed with the president earlier today. As the

adviser talked, the president had been looking

around die room, watching faces for reactions. Just

now he was looking at Tater Totten with narrowed

eyes.

He knows, the general thought.

When the adviser wound down, the president spoke

before anyone else could. "General Totten, you look

like a man with something to say."

"We can't ignore six ICBM'S armed with

biological warheads. We can't ignore a lab

for manufacturing toxins. We can't ignore a

warehouse full of stolen CBW warheads." He

leaned forward in his chair, looked straight at the

president, whose brow was furrowing into a scowl.

"Fifty million Americans are within range of

those missiles. We must move

right now

to disarm those missiles, put the Cubans out of the

biological warfare business, and recover those

stolen warheads. We have absolutely no

choice. When they find out what the threat is, the

American people are not going to be hi the mood to listen

to excuses."

Tater Totten looked around the table at the

pale, drawn faces. Every eye hi the room was on

him. "If one of those missiles gets launched at

America, everyone hi this room will be responsible.

That is the hard, cold reality. All this happy

talk about lifting embargoes and a new era of peace

hi the Caribbean is beside the point. We can't

ignore weapons of mass destruction aimed at

innocent Americans."

The silence that followed lasted for several

seconds, un-

til the president broke it. "General, no one

is suggesting we ignore those missiles. The question

is how we can best deal with the reality of their presence.

My initial reaction is to wait until a new

government takes over in Cuba, then to talk with them

about disarmament and return of the stolen warheads in

return for lifting the embargo. Reasonable people will

see the advantages for each side."

"Your mistakeea"...General Totten replied, "is

thinking that reasonable people will be involved in the

negotiations. Reasonable people don't build

CBW weapons of mass destructionunreasonable people

do. Unreasonable people use mem to commit murder for

ends they could achieve in no other way, ends they

think are worth other people's blood to attain. Now,

that,

by God, is reality."

The secretary of state had snaked the chairman's

letter of resignation over hi front of her while he

was speaking. Now she showed it to the director of the

CIA, who was on her left.

"What is that document"..."...the president asked.

"My letter of resignationea"...Tater Totten said

blandly. "I haven't decided whether to submit it

now or later."

As the president's upper lip curled hi a

sneer, the secretary of state put the letter back on

the table in front of disthe general.

"Totten, you son of a bitch!

I'm

the man responsible."

"I have to sleep nightsea"...Tater shot back.

"You reveal classified information to the press,

I'll have you prosecuted."...The president knew

damn well that Totten would hold a press conference

and tell all. "You'll spend your

goddamn retirement in a federal pen," the

president snarled.

"Bullshit! When the public finds out about polio

warheads on ICBM'S aimed at Florida, the

tidal wave is going to wash you away."...General

Totten pointed a finger at the president.

"Don't fuck this up, cowboy: there are too many

American lives at stake. Now isn't the time

for a friendly game of Russian roulette."

"Okayea"...the president said, lifting his hands and showing

the palms. "Okay! What's the date on that letter?"

"Today."

"Make it a week from today. We'll do this your

way, and a week from today you're permanently off to the

golf course with your mouth welded shut."

Totten got out his pen, changed the date on both

the letters, and passed them across the table to the president,

who didn't even glance at them.

"Better get cracking, Generalea"...the president

snarled.

"Yes, sirea"...sd Tater Totten. He rose

from his chair and walked out of the room.

At the same time the president and National

Security Council were meeting in Washington, the

Council of State of the communist government

of Cuba was meeting in Havana.

"Where is FidelThat someone roared at Alejo

Vargas as he walked into the room, flanked

by Colonel Santana on one side and a

plainclothes secret policeman on the other.

Santana limped as he walked. He was heavily

bandaged about the head and left arm, and moved like a man

who was very sore.

Vice President Raul Castro watched

Alejo Vargas take his seat at the table beside die

other ministers. His face was mottled, his anger

palpable. He motioned for silence, smacked a

wooden gavel against the table until he got it, then

looked Vargas straight in the face.

"Where is my brother?"

"Dead."

"And you have hidden the body."

"The body is being prepared for a state funeral.

I didn't think anyone would object."

"Liarff"...Ratil Castro spit out the word. He

stood, leaned on the table, and shouted at Vargas.

"Liarst I think you murdered Fidel. I think you

murdered him so mat you could take over the

country."...He waved at the window. "The

people out there think so too. You have murdered my

brother and arrested the man that he hoped would eventually

succeed him, Hector Sedano. Jesus, man, the

whole country is coming apart at the seams; they are

rioting in the streets!"

Alejo Vargas examined the faces around the table

while Raul shouted. Maximo Sedano was there, his

face impassive. Many of the faces could not be read.

Most of them merely wanted food to eat and a place

to live, something better than the people in the cane

fields had. They went to their offices every day,

obeyed Fidel's orders, took the blame when

things went wrongas they usually did watched Fidel

take the credit if things went right, and soldiered

on. That had been a way of Me for these people for two

generationsforty yearsand now it was over.

"... the people loved Fidelea"...Raul was saying,

"honored and respected him as the greatest patriot

in the history of Cuba, and I think you, Alejo

Vargas, had a hand in his death. I accuse you of his

murder."

"Watch your mouthea"...Santana told him, but Raul

turned on him like an enraged bear.

"I am vice president of the republic, first in

line of succession upon the death of the

presidentea"...Raul thundered at the

colonel. "Maintain your silence or be evicted."

Alejo Vargas had already removed his pistol from his

pocket while he sat at the table listening

to Raul. Now he raised it, extended it to arm's

length, and squeezed the trigger. Before anyone could

move he pumped three bullets into Raul

Castro, who fell sideways, knocking over his

chair. The reports were like thunderclaps in the room,

leaving the audience stunned and slightly deafened.

Alejo Vargas got to his feet, holding the

pistol casually in front of him in his right hand,

"Does anyone else wish to accuse me of

murder?"

Total, complete silence. Vargas looked from

face to face, trying to make eye contact with everyone

willing. Most averted their eyes when he looked

into their face.

"Colonel Santana, please remove Senor

Castro from the room. He is ill."

As a bandaged Santana and the plainclothesman were

carrying out the body, Alejo Vargas again seated

himself. He placed the pistol on the table in front

of him.

"I will chair this meetingea"...he said. "We

are here today to decide what must be done in light of the

recent death of our beloved president, Fidel

Castro. He fought a long, valiant fight against

the disease of cancer, which claimed him four days ago.

Of course the news could not be publicly announced

until the Council of State had been informed and

decisions reached on the question of succession.

"I do hereby officially inform you of the tragedy of

Fidel Castro's passing, and declare this meeting open

to discuss the question of naming a successor to the office of

president."

With that Vargas reached across the table and seized die

gavel that Raiil Castro had used. He tapped

it several times on the table, sharp little raps that made

several people flinch.

"This meeting is officially openea"...he declared. "Who

would like to speak first?"'

No one said a word.

"The news of our beloved president's death has

hit everyone hardea"...Vargas said. "I understand. Yet

the business of our nation cannot wait. L hereby

nominate myself for the office of president. Do I

hear a second?"

"I second the nominationea"...sd General Alba, his

voice carrying in the silence.

"Let the record show that I move to make the

nomination unanimousea"...Admiral Delgado said, his

voice quavering a little.

"I second that motionea"...General Alba replied,

"and move that the nominations be closed."

One would almost mink they rehearsed that, Alejo

Vargas thought, and gave the two general officers a

nod of gratitude.

* * *

Sharks!

The silent predators came gliding in even as

Ocho Sedano watched with his face hi the water,

gray, streamlined torpedoes swimming effortlessly

through the half-light under the surface. They seerned

to be swimming toward the place where the

Angel del Mar

had just gone under. No doubt the turbulence and noise

from the sinking boat attracted them.

The people thrashing about on the surface were also making

noise. Nature had equipped the sharks to sense the

death struggles of other creatures, and to come to feed.

He raised his head from the water, shouted, "Sharks.

Sharks."...His voice was very hoarse, his throat

terribly dry. He sucked up a mouthful of

salty seawater, men spit it out.

"Sharks!

Do not struggle. Swim away from the wreck, from each

other."

He didn't know if anyone heard him or not.

A scream split the air, then was cut off

abruptly, probably as the person screaming was

pulled under.

Another scream. Shouts of "Sharksff"...and calls

to God.

He felt something rub against his leg, and kicked

back viciously. With his face in the water he could

see the shark, a big one, maybe eight feet,

swimming toward the concentration of people in the water.

He turned the other way, began swimming slowly

away.

The old fisherman was nearby, doing the same.

"Do not panicea"...the old man said. "Swim slowly,

steadfly."

"The others ..."

"There is nothing we can do. God is with them."

He heard several more screams, a curse or two,

then nothing. He didn't want to hear. And he was

swimming into the wind, so the sound would not carry so

well.

Dora was back there. If she got off the

boat. He couldn't remember if she leaped from the

boat before it sank. Perhaps she drowned when the boat

went down. If so, that was

God's mercy. Better that than being eaten by a

shark, having a leg ripped half off, or an arm,

then bleeding hi agony until the sharks tore you

to pieces or pulled you under to drown.

That mere were still things, on this earth that ate people was an

evil more foul than anything he had ever imagined.

He tired of swimming and stopped once, but the

old fisherman encouraged him.

"Don't die here, son. Swim farther, get

away from the sharks."

"They're everywhereea"...Ocho replied, with impeccable

logic.

"Swim fartherea"...the old man said, and so he did.

Finally they stopped. How far they had come they had

no way of knowing. The sea rose and fell hi a

timeless, eternal rhythm, the wind occasionally ripped

spume from a crest and sent it flying, puffy clouds

scudded along, the sun beat down.

"We will die out hereea"...he told the old man, who

was only'ab ten feet away.

f

The fisherman didn't reply. What was

there to say?

Even the tragedy of Dora couldn't keep him

awake. He kept dozing off, then awakening when

water went into his nose and mouth.

In the afternoon he thought he saw a ship, a sailing

ship with three masts and square sails set to catch

the trade winds. Maybe he only imagined it.

He also thought he saw more contrails high in the sky,

but he might have imagined those too.

He would swim until he died, he decided.

That was all a man could do. He would do that and God

would know he tried and forgive him his sins and take him

into heaven.

Somehow that thought gave him peace.

"Gentlemen, your backing this morning touched me

deeply."

Alejo Vargas was sitting with General Alba and

Admiral

STEPHEN COONTS

Delgado in his office at the Ministry of

Interior. Colonel Santana was parked in a

chair near the window with his leg on a stool and a

bandage around his head.

"What happened to you, Colonel"..."...General Alba

asked.

"I was in an accident."

"Traffic gets worse and worse."

"Yes."

"Gentlemen, let's get right down to itea"...Alejo

Vargas began. "Right now I don't have the

support of the people. The mobs are out of control. We

must restore order and confidence in the government; that

is absolutely critical."

Delgado and Alba nodded. Even a dictator

needs some level of popular support. Or at

least acceptance by a significant percentage of the

population.

"I propose to move on two fronts. I will

send a delegate to Hector Sedano, see if

he can be enlisted to endorse me. Getting out of

prison will be an inducement, of course, but one can't

rely on anything that flimsy. I thought of naming him

as ambassador to the Vatican."

"That would be a popular moveea"...Alba thought, and

Delgado agreed.

"All my adult life I have been a student of

Fidel Castro's political wilesea"...Vargas

continued. "I learned many things from watching the master.

This may seem to you gentlemen to be heresy, but without

the United States, Castro would have lasted

only a few years in powerhad the world turned in the

usual way he would have been overthrown by a coup or

mass uprising when it became obvious that he could not

deliver on his promises. Fidel Castro

survived because he had a scapegoat: he had the

United States to blame for all our

difficulties."

"One should not say things like that publicly, but there is

much truth in that observation."

"The Yanquis never failed to play their part in

Fidel's little dramasea"...Delgado agreed, and

everyone in the room laughed, even Santana.

When his audience was again attentive, Alejo

Vargas

continued: "I propose to unite the Cuban people against

the United States one more time, and this time I shall be out

in front leading them."

Jake Grafton had dinner that evening with the commanding

officers of the units in the battle group. In

addition to the skippers of the ships, the marine landing force

commander, Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt, and the

air wing commander aboard

United States

were also there. Held in the carrier's flag wardroom,

the dinner was one of those rare official

functions when everyone relaxed enough to enjoy themselves.

Surrounded by fellow career officers, Admiral

Grafton once again felt that sense of belonging

to something bigger than the people who comprised it that had charmed

him about the service thirty years ago. The

tradition, the camaraderie, the sense of engaging in

an activity whose worth could not be measured in

dollars or years of service made the brutally

long hours, the family separations, and the demands of

service life somehow easier to endure.

He was basking in that glow when one of his aides

slipped in a side door and handed him a

top-secret flash message from Washington.

Jake put on his glasses before he took the

message from the folder.

He scanned the message, then read it again slowly.

Ballistic missiles in Cuba, biological

warheads, Castro dead comhe thanked the aide, who

left the room.

Jake read the message again very carefully as me

afterdinner conversation buzzed around him. The message

ordered him to stage commando raids on the suspected

ballistic missile sites, "as soon as

humanly possible, before the missiles can be launched

at the United States."

"Gentlemen, let us adjourn to the flag

spacesea"...Jake Grafton said, and led the commanders

from the wardroom.

When the group was together in the flag spaces, with the

door closed behind them, Jake said, "The course of

human events has catapulted us straight

into another mess. I just received this message from

Washington."...He read it

to them. When he finished, no one said anything. Jake

folded the message and returned it to the red folder.

He turned to the captains of the two Aegis-class

guidedmissile cruisers that were assigned to his

battle group:

"I want you to get underway as soon as you get

back to your ships. Take your ships through the

Windward Passage, then proceed at flank

speed to a position between the island of Cuba and the

Florida Keys that allows you to engage and destroy

any missiles fired from Cuba toward the United

States. Make every knot you can squeeze out of your

ships. Every minute counts. When you come up with an

estimated time of arrival, send it to me. We

won't lift a finger against the Cubans until both

your ships are in position."

He shook hands with the captains, and they

strode out of the room.

"The rest of us might as well get comfortable.

Looks like we are in for a long evening."

Ocho Sedano looked at it for fifteen minutes

before the thought occurred to him that he should find out what it

was. Something white, floating perhaps fifteen feet

away, slightly off to his right.

Now that the existence of the white thing had registered on

his consciousness, he made the effort to turn, to stroke

toward it.

He had been in the water all day. The sun would

soon be down and he would be alone on die sea.

After the sharks this morning there had been only Ocho

and the old man; now the fisherman no longer answered

his calls. Hadn't for several hours, in fact.

Maybe he just drifted out of hailing range, Ocho

thought. That must be it.

The sharks killed all the others, sparing only the

two men who had gone off the sinking boat first and

swam away from the group. At least he thought the

others were dead he had no way of knowing the truth of

it.

He had thought about the decision to swim away from the

sinking

Angel del Mar

all day, off and on, trying to

decide just what instinct had told him and the old man

to get away from the others. Drowning people often drag under

anyone they can reachno doubt that knowledge was a factor in the

old man's thinking, in his thinking, for he did not

want to put the respensibility for his life on

anyone but himself.

Perhaps those who were attacked by the sharks were the lucky

ones. Their ordeal was over.

Dorahad she been one of them?

Diego Coca was already dead, of course. He

died... a day or two ago... didn't he?

Jumped into the sea and swam away from the

Angel del Mar.

Ah, Diego, you ass. I hope you are burning in

hell.

He reached for the white thing, which of course skittered out

of reach. He paddled some more, reached up under it.

A milk jug. A one-gallon plastic milk

jug without a cap, floating upside down.

Apparently intact. He lifted the milky white

plastic jug from the sea, let the water drain out,

then lowered it into the water. The thing made a powerful

float.

He pulled it toward him.

Hard to hold on to, but very buoyant.

How could he hold it, use the power of its

buoyancy to keep himself afloat through the night?

Inside his shirt? He worked comthe jug down, Jried

to get it under his shirt. The thing escaped once, shot

out of the water. He snagged it, tried it again.

The second time he got it under his shirt. The thing

tried to push him over backward, but if he leaned

into it, he could keep his weight pretty much balanced

over it. Then he could just float, ride without effort.

As long as he could keep the open neck facing

downward, the jug would keep him up.

Ocho was celebrating his good fortune when a swell

tipped him over. He fought back upright, adjusted

the jug in the evening light.

Maybe he should just forget the jughe seemed to be working

as hard staying over it as he did treading water.

With the last rays of the sun in his face, he decided

to keep the jug, learn to ride it.

"I'm going to be rescuedea"...he said silently

to himself, "going to be rescued. I must just have

patience."

After a bit he added, "And faith in the Lord."

Ocho was a Catholic, of course, but he had never

been one to pray much. He wondered if he

should pray now. Surely God knew about the mess

he was inwhat could he conceivably tell Him that He

didn't already know?

In the twilight the water became dark. Still restless,

still rising and falling, but dark and black as the grave.

He would probably die this night. Sometime during the

night he would go to sleep and drown or a shark would

rip at him or he would just run out of will. He was oh

so very tired, a lethargy that weighed on every muscle.

Tonight,

he thought.

But I don't want to die. I want to live!

Please, God, let me live one more day. If

I am not rescued tomorrow, then let me die tomorrow

night.

That was a reasonable request. His strength would give

out by tomorrow night anyway.

The last of the light faded from the sky, and he was alone

on the face of the sea.

La Cabana Prison was an old pile of

masonry. In the hot, humid climate of Cuba

the interior was cool, a welcome respite from the

heat. Yet in the dark corridors filled with

stagnant air the odor of mold and decay seemed

almost overpowering. The iron bars and grates

and cell doors were wet with condensation and covered with

layers of rust.

During the day small windows with nearly opaque,

dirty glass admitted what light there was. At

night naked bulbs hanging where two corridors

met or an iron gate barred the way lit the

interior; and for whole stretches of corridors and

cells there was no light at all.

Hector Sedano saw the flashlight even before he

heard people coming along the corridor. One flashlight

and two

or three, maybe even four peopleit was

difficult to tell.

The flashlight led the visitors to this cell, and it

turned to pin him on the cot.

"There he is."

"I will talk to him alone."

"Yes,

Senor Presidente."

One man remained standing in the semidarkness outside

the cell after the others left. After the flashlight

Hector's eyes adjusted slowly. Now he could

see himAlejo Vargas.

Vargas lit a short cigarillo. As he struck

the match Hector closed his eyes, and

kept them closed until he smelled tobacco

smoke and heard Vargas's voice.

"Father Sedano, we meet again."

Hector thought that remark didn't deserve a

reply.

"I seem to recall a conversation we had, whattwo

or three years ago"..."...Vargas said thoughtfully. "I

told you that religion and politics don't mix."

"You even had a biblical quote ready to fire

at me, Mark twelve-seventeen. Most

unexpected."

"You didn't take my advice."

"No."

"You don't often follow advice, do you?"

"No."

"I came here tonight to see if you wish to make your

peace with Caesar and join my cabinet, perhaps as our

ambassador to the Church."

"You're the president now?"

'Temporarily, Until the election."

"Then the title will become permanent."

"I don't think anyone will want to run against me."

"Perhaps not."

"But let's take it a day at a time. Temporary

acting president Vargas asks you to serve

your country in this capacity."

"And if I say no?"

STEPHEN COONTS

"I want to sleep with a clean conscience, which is

why I came here tonight to make the offer."

"Your conscience is easily cleansed if that is all

it takes."

"It does not trouble me too much."

"A man who lives as you do, a lively conscience

would hurt worse than a bad tooth."

"So your answer is no."

"That it is."

"But at least you considered my offer, so I can sleep

knowing you chose your own fate."

"My fate is in God's hands."

"Ah, if only I had the time to discuss religion

with you, an intelligent, learned man. Time does not

allow me that luxury. Still, I have one other little thing

to discuss with you, and I caution you, this is not the time for a

yes or no answer. This thing you must think about very

carefully and give me your answer later."

Sedano scratched his head. Vargas probably

couldn't see past the glow of his cigarillo tip, so

it didn't matter much what he did.

"I want to know what Fidel did with the

gold from the pesos. I want you to tell me."

"Me? I was six years old when he melted the

gold, if he did."

"I think you know. I think Fidel told

Mercedes, and Mercedes told you. So I have come

to ask you where it is. Will you tell me?"

"She didn't tell me about gold."

"I should not have asked so quickly. I told myself I

would not do that, then I did. I apologize. I will

ask you later, when you have had time to think about the question and

all the implications."

"I can't tell you what I don't know."

"Well, think about it; that is all I ask. Of

course I will talk to Mercedes. I think she also

told you or the CIA about Fidel's Swiss

bank accounts. When Maximo went to get the money

it was not there. I would like to have been there

to see the look on Maximo's faceah, yes,

that

was a moment, my friend!"

He chuckled, then drew on the cigarillo, made

the tip glow.

"Maximo thinks the Swiss stole it; he is very

gullible. I smell the CIA. The CIA could

reach into Swiss banks as easily as you and

I breathe."

'The world is quite complex."

"Isn't it"..."...Vargas sighed. "All the strings lead

to Mercedes. She knew too much for her own good. I

think she will do the right thing. She is a loyal

patriot. With Colonel Santana asking the

questions, I have faith that she will do what is best for

Cuba."

Hector could feel the sweat beading up on his

forehead. He made sure his voice was under his

complete control before he spoke. "For Cuba?"

"For Cuba, yes. Cuba and me, our interests are

identical. I want the gold, Father, and I intend

to get it. Able you sit here rotting, you think about that."

Alejo Vargas turned and walked away, still puffing

on the cigarillo. ,

The smell of the tobacco smoke lingered in the cell for

hours. Hector fancied that he could still smell it

when daylight began shining through the window high in the

wall at the end of the corridor.

The submariners put the computer in a plastic

garbage bag to keep it dry, then put bag and

computer into a backpack that one of the sailors had for

his liberty gear. William Henry Chance put on

the backpack and the sailors adjusted the

straps.

. "You should be okay, sirea"...they said. At a nod from

the sound-powered telephone talker, Chance started up

the ladder with Tommy Carmellini right behind him. They

came out of the hatch on the submarine's deck forward

of the island. The deck wasn't much, merely wet

steel that curved away right and left into the black

ocean.

Hovering hi the darkness overhead was a helicopter the

downwash from the rotor blades made it hard

to breathe. Amid the comflashing lights and spotlights,

his eyes had a hard time adjustingChance felt almost

blind. One of the sailors on the deck put a horse

collar over his head and he went up into the chopper

first. Then Carmellini.

A strong set of hands pulled him into the chopper.

After a wave at the officers in the sail cockpit,

Carmellini used hands and feet to get over to the

canvas bench opposite the open door where Chance

had found a seat.

Forty-five minutes later the helicopter landed on

the flight deck of USS

United States.

As the rotors wound down, an officer in khakis

came to the chopper's door, and shouted,

"Mr. Chance? Mr. Carmellini?"

"Right here,"

"My name is Toad Tarkington. Will you gentlemen

come with me, pleddase? The admiral is waiting."

Tommy Carmellini felt completely out of

place, completely lost. After the submarine and the

helicopter, the strange sounds, smells, and

sensations of the huge ship underway in a night sea

seemed to max out his ability to adjust.

The compartment where Toad took the two agents was

packed with people, all talking among themselves. Still, compared

to the flight deck and the sensations of the helicopter, it

was an oasis of calm. Toad led them to a corner

of the room and introduced them to Rear Admiral

Jake Grafton.

Grafton was a trim officer about six feet

tall. The admiral's gray eyes captured

Tommy's caret attention. The eyes seemed

to measure you from head to foe, see all there was to see,

then move on. Only when the eyes looked elsewhere

did you see that Grafton's nose was a trifle

too large, and one side of his forehead bore an

old scar that was slightly less tan than the skin

surrounding it.

Toad Tarkington was several inches shorter

than the admiral and heavier through the shoulders. He was

a tireless whirlwind who dazzled a person meeting

him for the first time with quick wit and boundless energy, which

seemed to radiate from him like the aura of the sun. He

smiled easily and often, revealing a set of

perfect white teeth that would have made any dentist

proud.

Jake Grafton and William Henry Chance

stood behind Toad watching him work Alejo

Vargas's computer. Toad stared at the screen

intently while his fingers flew over the keys.

Soon they were plotting positions on a chart. "Those

missiles have to be at these locations,

Admiralea"...Toad said, pointing at the places he

had marked on the chart, "or the data in the computer

is worthless." He looked over his shoulder at

Chance. "Could this computer be a plant?"

Chance glanced at Carmellini, who was sitting in a

chair against the wall studying the layout and furnishings

of the planning space and the knots of people engaged in a

variety

STEPHEN COONTS

of tasks. The roar of conversation made the place

seem greatly disorganized, which Tommy realized was

an illusion. Charts on the wall

decorated with classified information, planning tables,

file cabinets sporting serious padlocks,

battle lanterns on the overhead, copy machines,

burn bagsthe place, reminded him of the inner

sanctums of the CIA'S headquarters at

Langley.

"Very doubtfulea"...Chance answered, and bent over to study

the chart Toad was marking.

"I make it six sitesea"...Toad said.

"Could there be more missiles"..."...Jake Grafton

asked. He too glanced at Carmellini, then

turned to Chance. "You see the pitfalls if there are

missiles we don't know about?"

"Yes, sir. I can only say we have seen

evidence for at least six."

"Six silosea"...Toad mused, studying the locations.

"There is a warhead manufacturing facility

someplace on that islandea"...Chance said. "The viruses

would have to be dried out, put in whatever medium the

Cubans believe will keep them alive and virulent

and dormant until the warhead explodes, then the

medium sealed inside the warheads. The facility will

not be large, but it will have clean rooms, ah-

scrubbers, remote handling equipment, and I would

think a fairly well equipped lab on

site."

"Any ideas"..."...Jake Grafton asked.

"I was hoping that the satellite reconnaissance people

might be able to find the site if wejtell them what

to look for."

"We'll have them look, certainly, but ypu have no

independent information about where this facility might be?"

"No."

Jake motioned to Carmellini, who leaned in so that he

could hear better. "Here is the situationea"...the

admiral said. "The White House has ordered us

to go get those missile silos as soon as possible.

Bombing the silos is outwe are to remove the

warheads and destroy the missiles. What my staff

and these other folks here tonight are trying to decide

is how best to go about doing what the president wants

us to do. Obviously, if we had enough time we could bring

in forces from the States and assault the silo

locations with forces tailored for the job. If we had

enough time we could even do a dress rehearsal, make

sure everyone is on the same sheet of music.

Unfortunately, the White House wants the

silos taken out as soon as possible."

"How soon is possible"..."...Chance asked.

Jake Grafton took a deep breath,

then let it out slowly. "That's the sixty-four

dollar question. We must find out what's there before we go

charging in."

He stood, walked over to a chart of Cuba that was

posted on the bulkhead. He was looking at a

penciled line on the chart that went through the Windward

Passage and along the northern coast of Cuba*

all the way to the narrowest portion of the Florida

Straits. The cruisers should be in position by six

o'clock this evening.

Jake turned from the chart and gestured at the people at the

planning tables. "These folks are just looking at

possibilities. We must assemble sufficient

forces to do the job, yet we run huge risks if

we take the time to assemble overwhelming force. There

is a balance there. When we see the latest

satellite stuff we'll have a better idea."

"I would be amazed if there are any troops around

these silos," William Henry Chance said.

IT-HEIR existence has been overlooked by two

generations of photo interpretation specialists. The

Cubans know that the whole island is painstakingly

photographed on a regular basiswe've been

looking at those damned silos for forty years and

didn't know what they were. They must be

underground and well camouflaged."

"I'm not sending anybody after those things until I

know what the opposition isea"...Jake said bluntly.

"I don't launch suicide missions."

"Are the silos your only target"..."...Chance asked.

Jake Grafton examined the tall agent with

narrowed eyes. "What do you mean?"

"The Cubans grew the viruses for their warheads in

a lab in the science building of the University of

Havana. If we walk off with the warheads in the

missiles, there is nothing to prevent the Cubans from

cooking up another batch and putting it in planes

to spray all over Florida and Georgia and

wherever."

"You are suggesting that we target their lab?"

"I highly recommended it. Chances to step on

cockroaches are few and far between: we better put

Alejo Vargas out of business while we have the

chance."

"All I can do is make a recommendation

to Washingtonea"...the admiral said.

"And the processing facility. If we are going

to take Cuba out of the biological warfare

business, we should do it right."

"Can we bomb any of these

places"..."...Toad Tarkington asked.

"Oh, noea"...Chance said. "A bomb exploding in a

lab full of poliomyelitis virus would be the

equivalent of a biological warhead detonating.

The virus would be explosively liberated.

Everyone downwind for a couple hundred miles,

maybe even farther, would probably die. No, the

only way to destroy the virus is with fire."

Jake Grafton scratched his head.

"The temperature would have to come up really quickly

to kill the viruses before the place started venting to the

atmosphereea"...Chance added. "A regular old house

fire wouldn't do it. We need something a lot

hotter."

'The fires of hellea"...Toad said, and his listeners

nodded.

The first batches of satellite imagery began coming

off the printers within an hour after the suspected silo

locations were encrypted and transmitted. The air

intelligence specialists were soon bent over the

images, studying them with magnifying glasses. Before

long Jake Grafton was shoulder to shoulder with the

experts.

"This first location looks like it's smack in the middle

of a sugarcane fieldea"...the senior Air

Intelligence officer groused.

Jake Grafton didn't have to think that over very

long. "Let's assume that our global positioning

is more accurate than the Cubans"."

"You mean they don't know the silos' exact

latstlong locations?"

"Precisely."

"Well, the nearest building to this sugarcane field

is this large barn, which is about three-quarters of a

kilometer away."...The specialist pointed. Jake

used the magnifying glass.

"That could be itea"...he muttered. "Let's see what

we can dig out of the archives. How long has this barn

been here, have there ever been any large trucks

aroundlet's look in all seasons of the yearand are

Cuban Army units nearby? I'm really

interested in army units."

"Power linesea"...the senior AI officer mused.

"Strikes me that there ought to be a large power feed

nearby."

"It sort of fitsea"...Toad Tarkington said

to Jake. "If they built the barn first, then they could

dig the silo inside the barn and truck the dirt out

at night, pour concrete, do all the work at

night."

"Install the missile at night when the thing is

finishedea"...the AI officer said, continuing the thought, "and

if they had no unusual activity near the barn,

no one would ever be the wiser."

"Prove to me that that is what they didea"...Jake said.

"And prove that we won't be sending troops into an

ambush."

The admiral stood amid the banks of computers and

watched the operators trade data via

satellite with the computers at the National Security

Agency in Maryland.

The CIA agents were fed and given bunks to sleep

in. They went without protest. Someone brought Jake

Grafton a cup of coffee, which he sipped as he

walked around the intel and planning spaces thinking about

intermediate-range ballistic missiles with

biological warheads.

STEPHEN COONTS

Dawn found Ocho Sedano still afloat, still hanging

grimly on to the milk jug and treading water. He

had stopped thinking hours ago. Hunger and

exhaustion had sapped his strength and thirst had

thickened his blood. He was not asleep, nor was he

awake, but in some semiconscious state in between.

He found himself looking into the glare of the

rising sun as it rose from the sea. The realization that

he had made it through the night crossed his mind, as

did the certainty that today was the last day.

Today, someone must find me

today....

The television lights were on and the cameras running

when Alejo Vargas walked to the podium in the main

reception room of the presidential palace in

Havana. For forty years Fidel Castro had

used this forum to speak to the Cuban people and the worldnow it was

Alejo's turn.

"We are hereea"...he began, "at a desperate hour

in our nation's life. The greatest Cuban patriot

of them all, Fidel Castro, died here five days

ago. Everyone listening to my voice knows the

details of his career and the greatness of the leadership he

provided for Cuba. I was with him when he died"...here

Vargas wiped tears from his eyes"...and I can tell you,

it was the most profound moment of my life.

"Yesterday the Council of State elected me

interim president, to hold office until the next

meeting of the National Assembly, which as you know

elects members of the Council of State and

selects xs'president. I swore to the ministers

and the Council of Stare that I would uphold

the Constitution and defend Cuba with all my strength.

Now I swear it to you."

He paused again and gathered himself. "Today there are people

on the streets who accuse me of murdering Fidel.

May God strike me dead if I am guilty of

that crime."

He paused, took several deep breaths, and since

God didn't terminate him then and there, continued:

"Fidel Castro died of cancer. His body shall lie

in state for the next three days. If you love

Cuba, I invite you to pay your respects to this

great man, and to look at his corpse. See if there

is a single mark of violence on the body. My

enemies have accused me of many things, but the murder of

Cuba's greatest patriot is the most vicious

cut of all. I too worshiped Fidel. Look

at the body carefullylet the evidence of your own

eyes prove the falsity of these accusations against

me."

Here again he had to pause to wipe his eyes, to steady

himself before the podium.

"I have been accused of other crimes, so I take

this opportunity to bare my soul before you, to tell you the

truth as God Almighty knows it, so you will know the

lies of my enemies when you hear them. My

enemies are also whispering that I killed Raul

Castro at a meeting of the Council of State

yesterday, when the facts of his brother's death were first

announced. The truth is Raul was murdered as he

stood at the table discussing the hopes and dreams of his

dead brother, by Hector Sedano. Raul Castro

was shot down before a dozen eyewitnesses, myself

included. I swear to you this day that Hector Sedano

will pay the price the law requires for his crime."

He paused again here, referred to his notes.

Someone had to take the fall for shooting Ratil, so

why not Hector?

"The story of our country is a story of struggle,

a struggle between the socialist people of Cuba and the evil

forces of capitalism, forces controlled and

dominated by the United States, the colossus to the

north. The struggle was not won by Fidel, although he

fought the great fightit continues even today. For

example, while they are representing to the world that they

are destroying their inventory of chemical and

biological weapons, the United States has

introduced these weapons to Cuban soil."

The camera panned to the artillery shell resting on

its base on a table beside the podium. His

"Here is an American artillery shell

loaded with the bac-

teria that causes anthrax, one of the deadliest

diseases known to disman. This shell was stored in a

warehouse at the American naval base at

Guantanamo Bay, which is sacred Cuban

soil. The Americans were unwilling to keep

thenpoisonous filth in their own country, so they

exported it to ours.

"I have this day asked the ambassadors of five of the

nations who keep embassies in Havana to send their

military attache's to inspect this warhead. Here is

a sworn document these officers executed that states

the shell is as I have represented, a biological

warhead."...He fluttered the paper, then held it up

so the camera could zoom in.

"The revelation here today of the United States's

perfidy will undoubtedly provoke a reaction from the

bandits to our north. Fidel always knew that the day

might come when we would have to defend ourselves again from

American aggression, so he installed a- battery

of intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cuba

for defensive purposes. These mis-. siles are

operational and ready now to defend our sacred soil.

Rest assured, my fellow Cubans, that we shall

resist American aggression, that we shall

fight to defend Cuba from those who would destroy her,

and we shall make her great for the generations to come.

"Thank you."

As a speech to a Cuban audience accustomed

to Fidel's six-hour harangues full of baroque

phrases and soaring rhetoric, Alejo's little

effort seemed underdone. He had actually made a

conscious effort not to sound like Fidel. Watching the

tape of the speech, he thought it went well.

"Air it immediatelyea"...he said to the television

producer, and walked back toward Fidel's old

office.

Alba and Delgado were there to meet him. They had

known that Vargas intended to blame RauTs murder

on Hector Sedano when he made this speech:

indeed, they had already signed eyewitness affidavits

swearing that they saw Hector shoot the man. That

Alejo Vargas had the cojones to make the big

lie stick meant a lot to these men who had

spent their lives in an absolute dictatorship

and knew that the man at the top had to be completely

ruthless, without scruple of any kind, to survive.

Fidel had been willing to crush his enemies any

way he could; Vargas seemed to have the same talent,

so perhaps he had a chance.

The two military men shook Vargas's hand.

"Tell us,

Senor Presidente,

what the Americans will do."

"I have thrown the ballistic missiles in their

faceea"...Vargas said. "I expect the Americans

to go to the United Nations Security Council and

ask for sanctions, perhaps a world trade embargo

sanctioned by the UN. Now that the missiles have been

discussed in public, the American government cannot

ignore them, even if they want to."

"Do you anticipate an attack?"

"I do not, but we must take precautions. The

missiles sit hi hardened silos impervious

to air attack, or nearly so. It is possible that

the Americans might attempt commando raids. I

suggest you move troops to the sites, have them dig in

around the silos."

"And if the Americans attack and we cannot

repulse them?"

"This dog will bite. Fire the missiles."

Alba grinned. His hatred of the Yanquis was common

knowledge. "If the Americans do attack, when would you

expect it?"

"They will try diplomacy first. Only if

that fails will they try military action."

"Still, I would like to move the troops immediately."

"By all meansea"...sd Alejo Vargas. "We will have

television cameras film your men digging in to defend

Cuba."

"And the missiles? Are you going to film them?"

"Of course. Cuba is a sovereign nation. The

world has changed since the 1962 missile

crisis. We have an absolute right to defend

ourselves, and if necessary we shall. Any noise the

Americans make will rally the Cuban people to us."

Even as Vargas talked to his military men, the

president of the United States's advisers were

arguing for diplomatic initiatives before military

options were weighed. "We must go to the United Nations

first," the secretary of state stated forcefully.

"What if the UN turns us down"..."...the president

asked in reply.

"We need political coverea"...the secretary shot

back. "A significant percentage of

Americans think Castro was a hero, a champion

of the downtrodden, and we unfairly bullied him. The

fact that he was an absolute dictator with zero

regard for human rights means very little to the political

left. Then there is the Casualty

problemthe-American people won't tolerate seeing their

soldiers killed while fighting for oil or

corporate profits in foreign wars."

"What bullshitff"...snapped Tater Totten.

"I'm really sick of listening to Vietnam draft

evaders tell us that Americans don't have the guts

to fight for civilization."

"I am

not

a draft evaderea"...shouted the secretary of state,

her face red, her cheeks quivering. "I demand an

immediate apology!"

"Shut up, both of youea"...the president growled.

"I apologizeea"...Tater Totten muttered, almost

as if he meant it.

The president had done some hard thinking since

Tater Totten demanded that the presence of the Cuban

missiles be addressed before any other matter with

Cuba was put on the table. Six missiles with

biological warheads aimed at the southeastern

United StatesCuban missiles today were every bit

as serious as when John F. Kennedy had to deal with

them, he decided. If the administration asked for the

blessing of the UN Security Council and didn't

get it, he would be worse off than if he

ordered military action immediately.

The lab and processing facility worried him too.

If Cuba could manufacture polio virus and

put it in an aerosol so-

lution, any plane that could fly across the Straits of

Florida could attack the United States.

By the time Alejo Vargas's broadcast was

translated and replayed for the National Security

Council, the president strongly believed that the

American people would react angrily to the presence of

missiles in Cuba. The outrage of the congressmen

and senators who heard the speech convinced him.

He called on Tater Totten again. "I'm

getting the cold sweats just thinking about this crap.

Tell me what we are going to do to make sure the

Cubans don't shoot those missiles."

"Sir, the best insurance is to go after the missiles,

the lab, and the processing facility as soon as

humanly possible, before the Cubans get troops

in there to defend them."

"When is humanly possible?"

"Tomorrow night would be the earliest possible date. Every

day we wait allows us to assemble more forces.

Conversely, every day we wait the risk increases:

Tomorrow Vargas can move more troops to guard

those silos; he could get wind of what's coming and

threaten to release polio virus by airplane,

by missile, or have somebody with an aerosol bomb

in a suitcase turn it loose God-knows where."

"So why not go tomorrow night?"

"We must put enough people and firepower in there to get the

job done. It's a nice calculation."

"Do you want me to make that decision?"

"I recommend that you leave the decision to the

military professional who is there, Rear

Admiral Grafton. He's spent thirty years

in uniform training for this moment, for this decision."

The president grunted.

The Chairman continued, "By tonight we will have two

Aegis cruisers in the Florida Straits between

Cuba and Florida. Jake Grafton ordered

them there on his own initiative. He's a good man.

The cruisers have the capability of shooting down

ballistic missiles coming out of Cuba."

"Do the Cubans know that?"

"Someone in Cuba mightthe information is in the public

domainbut I doubt that Alejo Vargas knows much

about U.s. naval capability."

"You hope he doesn't, because if he does, they

might launch before the cruisers get in

range."

Tater Totten nodded affirmatively.

"This Grafton, I've heard that he goes off

half-cocked, doesn't obey orders, isn't a

team player."

"I don't know who said that, but Jake 'Grafton

is the best we have. War is his profession. Alejo

Vargas is an amateur playing at warthere is a

vast difference."

"Grafton has enemies,"

"Who doesn't?"

"What if the Cubans launch their missiles and the

cruisers miss?"

"Then the shit will really be in the fan, Mr.

President. Americans will die, a lot of them.

You'll have to decide. how much of Cuba ybu want

to wipe off the face of the earth."

"We're going to hold a news conference to reply

to Vargas this afternoon."

"I wouldn't mention biological weapons, if I

were youea"...Tater Totten advised. "Let your

audience assume the Cuban missiles still have

nuclear warheads. Germs scare people more than bombs,

perhaps because they are invisible. And we've lived with the

bomb for fifty years."

The president pursed his lips thoughtfully.

Autrey James, Petty Officer Third

Class, USN, always watched the ocean from his station

in the door of the helicopter. It was a point of

pride with him. He once spotted two fishermen

whose boat had sunk off Long Island and was given a

medal and had his name and photograph in the

newspapers, but the part of that adventure that he

remembered best was his grandmother's reaction when she

read of his exploits. "You

save

people, Autrey, what a marvel-

ous professionff"...Grandmom's comment somehow said it all

for Autrey James; whenever his helo was

airborne, he watched the ocean. Maybe someday

he would save another life.

So that was the reason Autrey James spotted the

tiny object on the surface of the immense ocean and

called it out to the pilots on the ICS.

"Yo, Mr. P., looks like a man in the water

at ten o'clock, two milesea"...Autrey James said.

"Are you kidding me, James? You got eyes that

good?"

"Looks like a man to me, sir, but I could be

wrong."

"Well, we'll motor over that way just to find out

if you are."

The helicopter was an SH-60But Seahawk from

USS

Hue City,

one of the two Aegis-class cruisers that Jake

Grafton had sent charging northwest. The cruisers

were doing just that right now, running abreast of each other a

mile apart, making 32 knots, twenty-five

miles east of the helicopter's position.

Hue City's

commanding officer had launched his helo so the crew could

get some flight time and he could find out what was over

the horizon, beyond the range of his surface-search

radar.

"Dog my dingies, James, danged if that ain't

a survivor. Is he alive, do you think?"

"His head's still up, sir. Give me a hover and

I'll put the basket in the water."

The basket was just that, a basket on the end of a winch

cable. All the survivor had to do was crawl in,

then James could winch the basket up to the chopper and

help the survivor out.

Unfortunately, with the basket in the water just in

front of him, the survivor made no

attempt to get in.

"He ain't gettin" in, Mr. P.ea"...Autrey

James told the pilot. He was leaning out the door

of the helicopter so that he could see the survivor and the

basket.

"I don't think so. Looks like his head is out of the

water. Dead men don't float like that."

"You wanna jump in and help?"

"On my wayea"...sd Autrey James. The pilot

lowered the chopper to just a few feet above the water and

James jumped into the sea.

One look at the survivor's face told him the

man was near death, too weak to help himself. With some

pushing and pulling, James got the survivor into the

basket. The other enlisted man in the chopper winched

him up, then dropped the basket for James.

When James had his helmet on again, he informed the

pilot, "We'd better head back quick, Mr.

P. This guy is in real bad shape. His eyes

don't focus."

"Try to give him some water."

"I'll try, but we need to get him to a doc."

Autrey James leaned over the survivor, who was

deathly cold, and shouted to make himself heard above the

loud background noise, "Hey, man,

you're one lucky dude. You're gonna be okay.

Just hang on for a few more minutes."

"Blanketsea"...James said to the other crewman.

Both of them wrapped the survivor in wool

blankets.

"Gracias,"

said Ocho Sedano, anil tried to smile. Then

exhaustion overcame him and he passed out

The carrier and her battle group got under way at

dawn.

Kearsarge

stayed in Guantanamo Bay and began loading the

marines that had been guarding warehouse number nine.

The last of the warheads were going aboard the cargo ship

this afternoon, then it would sail. When it left,

Kearsarge

would also get underway with the marines, all nineteen

hundred of them.

The battle group steamed south from Guantanamo

bay. For about an hour the southern hills of Cuba

were visible from the decks of the ships, but they soon

dropped over the horizon and all that could be seen in

any direction was

the eternal ocean, always changing, always the same. It

was then that the carrier launched an E-2

Hawkeye, which carried its radar up to 20,000

feet. Everything the Hawkeye's early warning radar

saw was datalinked to the carrier's computers, where

specialists kept track of the tactical

picture.

Toad Tarkington took Jake aside and showed him

the latest message from the National Security

Council. He was directed to destroy the viruses

in the laboratory in the University of Havana's

science building, find and destroy the

warhead-manufacturing facility, and to remove the

warheads from the six missiles and destroy them in their

silos.

As Jake read the message, Toad said, "They

don't want much, do they?"

"Where in hell is the warhead-manufacturing

facility"..."...Jake groused. He went to find

William Henry Chance to ask him that question. He

found Chance in the wardroom drinking coffee with

Tommy Carmellini. They were the only two people there

at ten in the morning.

"Do you have any idea where we might find this

factory for making biological warheads?"

"Sit down, Admiral. Let me buy you a cup

of navy coffee."

Jake sat. Carmellini went for the coffee while

Jake repeated the question.

"It has to.be someplace between the science building

and the missile silosea"...Chance said. "No one in their

right mind would want to haul that stuff very far. A

traffic accident of some type ..."

Jake Grafton's brows knitted. He tapped

on the table. "If you were going to haul polio

viruses around, what kind of truck would you use?"

Chance shrugged. "I don't knowea"...he said.

"I've been thinking about it for five hours now, and

I've got an idea. We'll run it though the

recon computers and see what pops ou"...He got up

from his chair.

"Mind sharing your epiphany?"

"I'd haul the stuff in milk trucks. Clean,

sterile, and sealed. A dairy should have a sterile

environment and the equipment to mix the viruses with some

sort of a base, then load them into warheads."

Jake turned and marched from the room just as

Carmellini approached with the extra coffee cup and

saucer.

"He didn't stay long, did he?"

"Noea"...Chance grunted, and sipped at the coffee

Carmellini had brought from the urn in the

corner of the room.

"Think Grafton's big enough for this

job"..."...Carmellini asked..

"Yeah. I think he is."

Three dairies met Jake's specificationsthey

were located between Havana and the first of the missile

silos, which were arranged in a line beginning forty

miles east of Havana and going east from there. The

silos were about fifteen miles apart.

"Cows. See if they have cows around them."

"When?"

"The latest satellite photography. Whenever that

was."

Two of the dairies no longer had cattle in the

adjacent fields. The one that did was scratched off

the list. The other two were examined minutely by the

carrier's intelligence center experts and the National

Security Agency photo interpreters in

Maryland, who conferred back and forth via encrypted

satellite telephones. The experts decided that

neither dairy coold be eliminated as a possible

site for the warhead factory.

"We'll do 'em bothea"...Jake Grafton said.

By three that afternoon the staff and air wing planners had

come up with a draft plan. Actually the

task, destruction of eight targets, was a

relatively simple military one. Tomahawk

missiles could take out

the

lab and the dairies without muss or fuss. They could

probably also destroy the missiles in their

silos, as the silos were hardened in a simpler age,

when the threat was unguided air-dropped bombs.

With their ability to power-dive straight down on a

hardened target and penetrate ten or twelve feet

of reinforced concrete, Tomahawks were the weapon of

choice.

And they were out of the question. The president absolutely

refused to take the chance that polio viruses might

escape from a bombed lab or silo and kill tens

of thousands of Cubans in their beds. An event like that

would be political dynamite, with repercussions beyond

calculation. No, the politicians said,

American troops were going to have to lay their lives

on the line to prevent just such an occurrence. And,

Jake Grafton well knew, some of them would

die. . He had already put the wheels in motion.

Preliminary messages had been sent to other

commands, asking them for the assistance Jake thought he would

require. A thousand details remained

to be worked out by the various staffs involved, but the

machine was in motion. The primary task Jake still

had to address was setting the day and hour for the attack.

As he stood looking at the charts of Cuba that

covered the wall in the planning space, Jake and his

staff wrestled with the timing question. Captain Gil

Pascal, the chief of staff, argued that the operation

should be delayed until such time as U-2's could

fly a photo recon mission and get the very latest

enemy troop positions.

"Vargas made a speech todayea"...Jake replied.

The speech and a translation had played several times

on television. Jake had even stopped once

to watch it.

"Hue City

and

Guilford Courthouse

are racing for the Florida Straitsea"...Toad

Tarkington argued. "This battle group is underway.

The Cubans may find out about these ship movements and

put two and two together and get their wind up. They

may be able to put twenty-four hours of delay

to better use than we can."

"That's the nub of it, isn't it"..."...Jake mused, and

stood looking at the charts, trying

to imagine how it would be.

Sure, things would go wrong. People were going to have the wrong

frequencies, go to the wrong places, everything

STEPHEN COONTS

that could go wrong would. Still, the missions were simple.

The real issue, Jake concluded, was the

follow-up. What were you going to do if the troops

ran into more trouble than they could handle? How would you

extract them? How would you destroy the target?

Jake called the Pentagon on the satellite

telephone. He was patched through via land line

to General Totten at the White House.

After the usual greetings, Jake said, "Sir,

two points. First, I would like to address the

proposal to delay the operation until Patriot

SAM batteries can be moved into southern

Florida. If we pop a Cuban missile

over southern Florida the cloud of viruses may

drift over to Miami or Tampa. I don't

think we gain anything by waiting for Patriot

batteries."

"We've about reached the same conclusion here, but there

has been vigorous debate. What is your

second point?"

"In my view, the key to getting this done

is our willingness to do whatever is required

to accomplish the mission."

"The president is listening, Admiral. Explain

yourself."

"As I see it, General, our choice is-to either

wait until we are convinced we can pull it off,

or go now before the Cubans have a chance to garrison these

sites with troops. The lab in Havana presents

problems that the other sites do not. We will have

to tackle the lab after the missiles are destroyed."

"Okay."

"If the troops assaulting the silos run into more

Cubans than they can handle, we must either add more

forces or extract our men. If we elect

to extract our people, we still have the problem of the missile

in the silo and we will have handed the Cubans a

victory in a fight we cannot afford to lose."

"What do you propose?"

"We won't be able to go back later with more people. We

get one bite of the apple, sir. I propose that

you au-

thorize me to use whatever force is required

to accomplish the mission, short of nuclear

weapons."

Jake Grafton heard the president

loudly say, "I'm not giving him or anybody

else the authority to risk a catastrophic

release of toxins. No."

"We'll call you backea"...General Totten said, and

hung up.

Mercedes went to stay with Dona Maria Vieuda

de Sedano, to cook for her and clean and do whatever

needed to be done. She had stayed with her mother-in-law

in the past, after her husband, Jorge,

diedfortunately the two women genuinely liked each

other.

She and Dona Maria ate lunch on the little porch

of the bungalow so they could enjoy the breeze blowing in

from the sea. It was strong today, whipping the palm

fronds and rippling the sugarcane. Little puffy

clouds threw severe shadows that raced over the

ground.

Dona Maria had gone back inside for a nap and

Mercedes was sewing a blouse together when a limo

drove up and Maximo got out. He came up the

short walk, paused at the steps, and looked at

her. "I thought I would find you hereea"...he said.

"Mima's

sleeping."

"I came to see you."

She nodded, continued working on the blouse. He stayed

on the dirt and scraggly grass, walked around so the

porch railing was between them.

"Vargas made a speech this morning. It was on

television."

"Hmmea"...she said. Dona Maria did not have a

television, and Maximo knew that.

"He is the president now."

"I have heard."

"Did he really kill Fidel"..."caret

"No."

Her thread broke. She got out the spool of thread

and rethreaded the needle.

"Would you tell me if he had?"

"What did you come for, Maximo?"

"I need your help."

She knotted the thread and began a new seam.

"You don't think much of me, do you?"

"I don't think of you at all."

He leaned on the porch railing, crossing his arms.

"Where did Fidel hide the gold?"

"I didn't know he had anyea"...she said, not looking

up from her work. "He didn't even have gold in his

teeth."

"The gold pesos the government called hi

after the revolutionthat gold."

"I have no ideaea"...she said.

"I think you do. I think Fidel told you."

"Think what you like."

"He wouldn't let the secret die with him."

"Maximo, look at me. If I had a

pocketful of gold, would I be sitting here on the

porch of a tiny, ninety-five-year-old bungalow

with a thatched roof beside the road to Varadero, sewing

myself a shirt?"

"I don't think you have itI think you know where it

is."

She snorted and went back to the needle and the seam.

"You don't want the gold for yourself, I know. But

I need it. Not all of it, just a little. I must get

out of Cuba."

A strand of hair fell across her face. She

brushed it back.

"We could leave together, Mercedes, if we had some of

that gold. You could go anywhere on earth you wanted,

live the rest of your life without worry, without fear,

without need. Think of it! A new life, a new

beginning. How much of this heat and dirt and hopeless

poverty do you want, anyway?"

"Forget the gold, Maximo. If there is

any, it is not for you."

He backed away from the railing, stood in the sun with

the sea wind playing at his hair. "Think about

itea"...he said. "Vargas is no fool; he wants the

gold too. One of these days he will send Santana

around to see you. Think about what you are going to say

to him when he comes."

He walked to the waiting limo. The driver turned

the car in the road and headed back toward Havana.

Toad Tarkington was the only person in the room with

Jake as they waited for the chairman of the joint

chiefs to call from the White House.

"What do you want from them, Admiral?"

"I want the authority to do whatever I have to do

to destroy those virusesea"...Jake Grafton

explained. "Once the shooting starts,

we have to win."

"What if the president won't give you that

authority?"

"He has a right to say that. We'll go do our best,

and if we can't cut it without using Tomahawks or

laser-guided weapons, then we'll call him up and

say so."

"What is the problem here"..."...Toad demanded. "If

there is a toxin release he won't be the

guy responsible. Fidel Castro and Alejo

Vargas are the guilty parties. This is

their

country."

Jake shook his head. "If there is a toxin

release in America, the president must be able

to prove that he did everything humanly possible

to prevent it If there is a release in Cuba...

well, he will need to show people around the world that he did

what he could to prevent it while still eliminating the

threat to the U.s. Elimination of the threat is the key

here, and I hope they understand that in Washington." He

smacked the wall with his hand. "Dammit, we only

get one shot at those viruses."

"I wonder if anyone in Washington is thinking about

the Bay of Pigsea"...Toad mused. "That turned

into a debacle because Kennedy wasn't willing to commit

enough resources."

"I've

been thinking about itea"...Jake Grafton said.

When the telephone rang, General Totten was on

the

line. "Admiral, we shall word it like this: 'allyour

mission is to eliminate the threat to the United

States. In completing your mission you are

instructed to do everything within your power to minimize the

possibility of a toxin release in Cuba. You

may use any forces and weapons in your command

except nuclear or CBW weapons, and you may

request assistance from any command in the U.s. armed

forces." ""Yes, sir."

"I'll have that on the wire as soon as

possible.""...allyes,

sir. I

want to thank you and the president. We'll do our

best."

"I know you will, sailor. When are you going?""...Tomorrow

night, sir. In view of all the factors

involved, that is my choice."

Over Cuba the next morning the cloud cover was

typical for that time of year: as the sun rose the

prevailing westerly winds spawned cumulus

clouds over the warming land. The longer the clouds

remained over land, the higher they grew. In the area

east of Havana where the Americans believed the

missile silos and processing lab were located the

cloud cover averaged forty or fifty percent by ten

in the morning, enough to inhibit satellite and U-2

photography of the area. Infrared photography

was not affected by the clouds, nor were the

synthetic-aperture radar studies done by air force

E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft.

Oblivious to the intense scrutiny that the island was now

getting disf the Americans, General Alba conferred

that morning with Alejo Vargas, then ordered troops

and tanks moved into position around the silos. There were

actually eight silos, but only six held

operational missiles. The other two missiles had

been used as sources of disspare parts through the years.

Had Alba and Vargas realized what was coming, they

might have elected to dissipate the American

military effort by garrisoning all eight silos: as

it was, they didn't think of it.

The sun had been up just two hours when two

C-130 Hercules landed at the naval air station

at Key West, Florida. On the civilian

side of the field people stood and watched as the Hercs

parked on the other side of the runway. Soon navy

personnel began unloading the transports. The

civilian kibitzers did not know what the pallets

and canisters con-

STEPHEN COONTS

tained, and after a while they went on about their

business. Four armed marines in combat gear took

up locations where they could guard the

transports.

Among other things, the transports had delivered

belted

20-mm ammunition for miniguns, Hellfire

missiles, flares, and 2.75-inch rockets. They

also delivered tools and spare parts to work on Marine

Corps AH-1Will SuperCobras.

Two hours after the Hercs landed, the first two

SuperCobras settled onto the military mat.

By noon sixteen of the mottled green helicopters

were parked hi the sun.

The two-man crews didn't leave the base, but

went into an old, decrepit navy hangar nearby

for briefings.

Two more C-130's wearing marine markings landed an

hour or so later. They parked near the first two. As

navy trucks began refueling the planes, marines

disembarked and spread their gear on the ramp. They

lounged around, a few walked a safe distance away

and lit cigarettes, and after awhile a navy truck

brought hot food.

Troops, tanks, and trucks were moving in Cuba

by noon, blocking roads and creating traffic jams.

By midafternoon the E-3 Sentry crews had alerted

the National Security Agency, which passed

the information on to USS

United States.

Jake Grafton went to the ship's intelligence

center to see what the computers could tell him.

After listening to the briester, Jake Grafton

muttered, "Damn."

He went over the data, then asked, "How much

combat power are they moving, and when will it be in

place?"

In New York City the U.s. ambassador

to the United Nations paid a call on the Cuban

ambassador. After exchanging civilities, the

American said bluntly, "My government has

asked me to inform you that if the Cuban government

releases biological toxins of any kind in the

United States, for any reason, the American

government will massively retaliate."

""Massively retaliate""..."...The Cuban's

eyes widened. "What does that mean?"

"Sir, I was instructed to deliver the message, not

to interpret it. Here is the statement in writing."...The

American handed over a sheet of paper and took her

leave.

Aboard USS

Hue City,

now underway precisely halfway between Cuba and

Key West at ten knots, Ocho Sedano awoke

in midafternoon from a deep sleep. He found that he was

in a hospital bed on a small ward, with two

intravenous solutions dripping into his veins. His

vision was blurred, he could not focus his eyes.

The doctor on the ward noticed that he was awake and

came over to check him. In a few minutes an

American sailor who spoke Spanish came

to interpret.

"Your eyes are sore from the salt of the water. They

will get better. Can you tell us your name, senor?"

"Juan Sedanoea"...he whispered, because he could not

talk above a whisper. "They call me El

Ocho."

"And where are you from?"

"Cuba."

"How long were you in the sea?"

"Two days and nights, I think. I am not sure.

Maybe more than that."

The doctor put a solution into Ocho's eyes

while the questions and answers were flying back and forth.

After blinking mightily Ocho thought he could see a

little better. The doctor was examining Ocho's

fingertips and the calluses on his hands. Now

he held up Ocho's hand and peeled off a

callus. Then he smiled. "You were very lucky."

The translator interpreted.

"Where am I"..."...Ocho asked.

"Aboard

Hue City,

a United States Navy ship. You were rescued

by a helicopter. The man who saw you in the water

wants to shake your hand when you awaken. He saved

your life. May I call him?"

"I would like to meet him."

STEPHEN COONTS

It felt very comfortable lying there, looking at the fuzzy

beds and blurred people bustling about, checking him over, so

different from

Angel del Mar.

Or floating on the sea.

Maybe he was dead. He examined that possibility

but concluded it was not so. This was not a bit like the heaven

he envisioned, and he was hungry. He told the

interpreter of his hunger, and the man went to talk to the

doctor, who had wandered off.

They brought food about the same time that Autrey

James came breezing in with one of his pals, who

had a camera. James was a happy

fellow with a wide smilethe white teeth in a dark

face were the only details that Ocho could see.

James got down beside the bed and posed while the man

with the camera took many pictures. Another man with a

camera came, some kind of television camera, and

he and James shook hands again. Several men in

khaki stood behind the camera watching.

The interpreter relayed the questions from Autrey

James and the television cameraman. When did you

leave Cuba, What was the name of the boat, How many

people were there?

"Eighty-four people."

"Eighty four"..."...asked the interpreter in disbelief.

"Eighty-fourea"...whispered Ocho Sedano.

"What happened to the boat?"

"It sank."- .

"And the people?"

"They went into the water... sharks."

"Sharks?"

"Some people were swept over the side during a storm our

first night at sea. Diego Coca shot the

captain, some people died of thirst... Diego jumped

into the sea. The children died of exhaustion and hunger,

I thinkit is really impossible to say. There was no

food or water, only rain to drink. When

the boat sank those who were left were eaten by sharks.

If they didn't drown. I hope Dora drowned.

"The old fisherman and I were spared.... Did you

find

him? The old fisherman? Did you see him in the

ocean"..."...He clawed at Autrey James, who

drew back out of reach.

"Noea"...the interpreter said. "You were the only one."

They went away men, all of them, left him to eat

the food and stare at the ceiling and think about the fact

that he was alive and all the others were dead.

The others were dead. He was alive. What did that

mean?

Was God crazy?

Why me?

He was thinking about that when someone came to put solution

in his eyes again. This time the solution made him cry.

He sobbed for a minute or two, then his body gave

out and he slept.

"Why did you not put the gold in a bank vault?"

Mercedes had asked this question of Fidel several years

ago, when he first told her of the gold pesos. As

she sat on her mother-in-law's small porch

completing her blouse, she remembered the

question, and Fidel's answer:

"If we kept the gold in a bank, the international

bankers would have learned of it eventually, would have

demanded that we post it as security for a loan. Then

a hurricane would come or the bottom would drop out

of the sugar market one year, and the gold would be gone."

"But the gold does not help Cuba. Why own it?"

"The gold is oursea"...he said obstinately. "When it

is gone it is gone for all Cubans forever."

"But you hid it, so it is gone now."

"Oh, no. You and I know where it is. As long as it

is hidden, it belongs to Cuba."

She couldn't shake himhe had the peasant's love

of the secret hoard, the instinctual drive to bury a

can of money or hide it in a mattress, just in

case. No matter how bad things got in the house,

the money was always there,

STEPHEN COONTS

hidden, an asset that could be tapped to stave off

starvation or disaster.

He said as much when he admitted, "In the middle

of the night, when I am alone and the world is heavy on

my shoulders, I remember we still have the gold."

Fidel and Che Guevara hid it together, for Cuba.

Guevara was killed in Bolivia and

apparently took the secret to his grave.

Fidel didn't want tohe told the one person

on this earth he trusted.

She wished she didn't know this thing. As she worked on

the last seam of the blouse, she thought about this great

secret, about what she should do.

Mercedes Sedano had confided in no one, had

written nothing down. With Fidel dead the gold was

only one heartbeat away from being lost forever. She

must do something, but what?

Fidel had been a knot of contradictions. She

had argued with himchallenged the macho man hmfand he

had admitted some of his failures, which was a rare

moment for him. Not all of his errors, but some.

"I am the only communist in Cubaea"...he said,

laughing. "Becoming a communist was a mistakeof

course I can never say that hi public. We had

to declare our independence from the American financiers and

corporations. In the fullness of time it turned out that

the Russian horse couldn't run the race, which was

unfortunate, but that didn't mean we were wrong in the

first place."...He shrugged.

He had the Latin's ability to accept life's

vicissitudes as they came with courage and grace.

"The best thing about communism was the

dictatorship. The economic twaddle meant

nothing. Someone had to show the Cuban people they could stand

on their own feet, that they didn't need to sell their

souls to the Americans or the Catholic

Church."...He smiled again, made a gesture toward

heaven. "The truth is we were too poor to afford the

Church or the Americans."

If Santana or Vargas tortured her, she would

tell them

about the gold. To suffer horribly and die for a

secret that you thought illogical was worse than

stupidit would be a sin.

Did he ever wonder what she would do if she found

herself in this situation?

She finished the last seam, shook out the blouse, and

held it up so she could view it.

Had Fidel really trusted her to make the decision

that was best for Cuba, or did he just think that she would

keep her mouth shut?

For Maximo Sedano the question was simple and stark:

Where was the gold?

Rumors had circulated for forty years, and not a

flake had ever surfaced. Several men swore they

had helped melt the coins into ingots in a smelter

in the basement of the Ministry of Finance, but

they never knew what happened to the ingots. Alejo

Vargas had been running the secret police for

twenty years and the Ministry of Interior for the last

ten and probably hunting for the gold for at least

nineteen, and he hadn't found it. At least

Maximo didn't believe he had. In forty years

no loose ends had unraveled... so there must have

been no loose ends.

The conclusion Maximo drew from these facts was that

only a very few peopleFidel, perhaps his brother

Raul, maybe Chehad known the secret in the first

place. Today the secret might be known by a few people

who had been close to them. In any event, there were

no elderly workmen about who liked to run their mouth when

they drank their rumVargas would have found anyone like that

years ago.

So the gold wasn't made into statues, poured like

concrete into a floor or foundation, made into bricks

and used to construct a state building, or

transported to some flyspecked hovel and buried

under the floor. No. If the gold had been hidden

this way, someone involved in the labor would have talked

during the last forty years.

If there were secret records waiting to be discovered

or

STEPHEN COONTS

letters in bank vaults, Maximo would never discover

them. All he had were his wits.

With Fidel dead and Alejo Vargas ascendant,

Maximo was using his wits now, applying them as never

before.

In search of inspiration, he walked the streets of

Havana to the Museum of the Revolution.

Like so many revolutionaries who swashbuckled through the

pages of human history, after his victory

Fidel found it expedient to enshrine himself as the

savior of the nation so that he might remain at the

helm permanently. Of course, to properly do the

job it was also necessary to build a monument to the venality

and depravity of his enemies, because great heroes need

worthy opponents. Amazingly, all this good,

evil, and greatness fit neatly under one roof: the

presidential palace that had been the residence of

Fulgencio Batista.

Maximo walked quickly through the exhibits that

detailed Batista's corruptionwhat he sought would

not be there.

He quickly found what he was looking for. Fidel the

savior,

"El Lider Maxima"

portraits, busts, memorabilia, candid and

posed photographs, heroic paintingsall of this was

enough to turn the stomach of anyone who had actually known

the man, Maximo thought. Alas, Fidel had been

very flawed clay: megalomaniacal, filled with a

sense of his own magnificent destiny, boorish,

opinionated, pigheaded, insufferable, prejudiced,

loquacious to a fault, and, all too often, just

plain wrong. What a tragedy that this

self-annointed messiah was stranded in this third world

backwater and never had the opportunity to save the

species, which he could have done if only God had

sent him to Moscow or Washington.

Maximo tried to stifle his disgust and concentrate upon

the displays before him.

Fidel and Che Guevara, Camilo

Cienfuegos, the other immortals ... The

university, the Moncada Barracks, the trial,

prison, handwritten letters, exile, guerrilla

days ...

He carefully looked at everything, then wandered on.

He came to a room devoted to the fall of

Havana; Fidel riding into the city on a tank,

ecstatic children. Then Fidel the ruler; Fidel the

baseball player; Fidel and Che fishing

in the Gulf Stream; Fidel with Hemingway,

Richard Nixon, Khrushchev, Kosygin, the

famous and the infamous, always togged out in those abysmal

green fatigues; dozens of shots of Fidel with his

mouth open in front of crowds ... God, how the

man Could talk to a captive audience!

Maximo was in the next room looking at photos

of Fidel eating rice and beans with schoolchildren when the

incongruity of the photo of Fidel and Che fishing

struck him. Odd, that.

He went back to it. The two were on some kind of

fishing boat, with fighting chairs and big rods,

fishing for marlin probably.

Wait a minute ... The marina where Maximo

kept his boat... When he first moved it there the

harbormaster had once told him that Fidel used

to leave from that marina to fish.

Now he remembered. Yes. The old man said

Fidel and Che fished often, every few days, went out

by themselves, often spent the night at anchor in the

harbor. After a year or so they tired of it, the old

man said wi/lly, never came back. The boat

belonged to the Cuban Navyseized from an

Americanand was eventually converted to a gunboat.

He could remember the old man talking,

could see the wind playing with his white hair as he

stood on the dock in the sun talking about his hero,

Fidel, about that moment one day long ago when their

lives came close together.

The harbormaster had been dead for years. The new

man was far too young to remember anything.

What if the gold were on the floor-of Havana

Harbor?

Each night Fidel and Che could have lowered hundreds

of pounds of it over the side of the boat free from

observation. Given enough nights ...

Over time the gold could have gradually disappeared

from the Finance Ministry. If no one but Fidel and

Che handled the gold, there was no one to talk.

Maximo could see logistical problems with this

possibility, of course, but not insurmountable ones.

He left the museum deep in thought.

"The air force's AW AC* reports that the

Cuban military is moving toward the silo

sites, Admiral."

The briefer was a commander, the senior Air

Intelligence officer on the carrier

battle-group's staff.

"The troops are being moved from barracks in the

Havana area. We can see tanks and

trucks, which presumably contain supplies and

troops. The columns are moving slowly, eight

to ten miles per hour. Cuban troops have already

arrived at missile site number one. Just arriving

on sites two and three. We estimate that there will

be no Cuban military presence on sites four

though six until tomorrow morning after dawn."

"Why so slow"..."...Jake Grafton asked.

"These are old tanks, Soviet T-54's.

We think they see no reason to risk breakdowns

by driving faster. The consensus seems to be that the

Cubans aren't on full alert."

"Okay"

Jake Grafton said, because there was nothing else

to say. The god of battles was dealing the cards.

The briefer continued, pointing out bridges and

crossroad choke points, and Jake tried

to concentrate, which was difficult. When the briefer

finished, Jake dismissed his staff and sat staring at

the map on the bulkhead.

The plan was good: the weather would be typical, the

forces he had should be adequate, they knew their

jobs ... but if the Cubans fired those missiles

at the United States, two Aegis cruisers were

all he had to prevent the missiles from

reaching their targets.

Should this whole operation be delayed until

antimissile batteries could be moved to south

Florida?

Every hour of delay meant more American troops would

die taking those missile sites. Yet if the

missiles success-

fully delivered their warheads, the results would be

catastrophic.

He looked again at the planat the timing, at the

units assigned.

Biological weapons. Poliomyelitis.

He could always use more people, of course. One of the

primary goals of warfightingsome people argued, the

only

goalwas to direct overwhelming force at the point

where the enemy was most vulnerable. Or as Bedford

Forrest put it, "Get there firstest with the mostest."

Already the Cubans were digging in around silos one and

two. What if the forces he had committed couldn't

crack those nuts?

The urge to wait for a bigger hammer had Jake

Grafton in its grip now. He felt like David

with his slingshot. Maybe he needed more Aegis

cruisers, some Patriot missile

batteries, more cruise missiles, troops,

Ospreys, airplanes.

If one of those missiles got through ...

He found a handkerchief in his hip pocket and

mopped his face.

His stomach tried to turn over.

He hadn't felt like this since Vietnam. Way

back in those happy days he had been responsible

only for his bombardier's life and his own miserable

existence. All things considered, that load had been

relatively light.

This load ...

Well, Jake Grafton, Uncle Sugar's

been paying you good money all these years while you

've been getting fat and sassy on the long

grass. It's payback time.

In midafternoon Toad Tarkington went to the communication

spaces to call his wife, Rita Moravia, on

one of the ship-to-ship voice circuits. He had

done this a time or two before and the chief petty officer

was accommodating when the circuits were not in use for

official business. This afternoon he asked the chief for

an encrypted circuit but they were all busythe chief

handed him a clear-voice handset.

Toad called

Kearsarge

and left a message for his wife. Ten minutes

later she called him back.

"Hey, Toad-man."

"Hey, Hot Woman."

Tonight, he knew, she would be flying a V-22

Osprey, hauling troops to missile silo two.

"Just wanted to hear your voiceea"...Toad said, as

matterof-factly as he could. He could envision this

conversation coming over radios in ships throughout the

battle group and in Cuban monitoring stations.

He had no intention of giving away secrets nor

of entertaining kibitzers.

Rita was equally circumspect. "Got a letter from

Tyler. He wrote it with Na-Na's help, of

course."

"How's Ty-Guy doing?"

"He has a girlfriend, the Goldman girl across the

street."

"That's my boyea"...Toad said. "A lover already. A

chip off the old brick."

Aboard

Kearsarge

Rita was holding the handset in a death grip. She

loved life: her son, her husband, her

job, the people she worked withevery jot and comma of her

life. Oh, of course there were days when the stress and

problems threatened to overwhelm her ability to cope,

but somehow she managed. In the wee hours of the night

when she paused to evaluate, she knew that she

wouldn't change a thing. Not one single thing.

Now she realized that Toad hadn't spoken in

several seconds.

"I wouldn't change a thingea"...Rita said.

"I was thinking the same thingea"...he said.

"From day one."

"I remember the first day I saw you. Wow."

"When we were at Whidbey, I thought you hated me."

"And I thought you didn't like me."

"Thank God you finally screwed up the courage

to kiss me."

"Wish I could nowea"...he shot back.

Tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to tell

him how

much he had meant all these years, how grateful she

was that they shared life, and nothing came out. She put

her hand over the mouthpiece so he wouldn't hear her

cry.

"Next time we're together, better not wear

lipstickea"...he said.

"I never wear lipstickea"...she managed, her voice

barely under control.

"It's a good thing, tooea"...he said, his voice

cracking.

The silence grew and grew.

"Well, I gotta goea"...Toad finally said. "They

wanna use this circuit to trade movies or

something."

"Yeah."

"Vaya con Dios,

baby."

"You too, Toad-man."

Toad found Jake Grafton hi Combat huddled

with Gil Pascal, the chief of staff. He listened

to the conversation for a moment, then realized that the admiral

was trying to assure himself that he had adequate forces

to win. Tonight!

After a bit Jake turned toward Toad.

"Let's have your two centsea"...he said.

"If we need anything, sir, it's a bigger

reserve. We have three V-22's with twenty-four

marines each to go wherever they are needed. A while

ago the CO of the carrier's marine del asked if

he and some of his people could get in on the fun.

He called

Kearsarge

and found there is one extra Osprey. It's being

used as a backup to the first wave, but if it isn't

needed, then it'll be an extra."

Gil Pascal frowned. "The carrier's marines

haven't been briefedea"...he pointed out.

Jake glanced at Toad and raised one eyebrow.

"Sir, I was hoping you would let me go with

themea"...Tarkington replied cheerfully. "I'm as

briefed as it's possible to get."...Actually, as

Ops, Tarkington wrote the plan.

"You've been planning to spring this on me all day,

haven't you?"

"I could take a satellite phone, give you a

worm's-eye

STEPHEN COONTS

view of the action, let you know if there is really a

problem."

"Did the marine det CO approach you with this

marvelous idea, or did you approach him?"

Toad turned his eyes to the ceiling. "An officer

I know well used to say, 'allyou know me." his

"I think I know that guy tooea"...Jake said, and

chuckled. "Oh, all right, damn ityou can

go. Gil and I will try to hold the fort without you. If

the backup Osprey isn't needed, you'll be part

of the cavalry. Tell the grunts to saddle up."

The Spanish-speaking sailor who acted as an

interpreter shook Ocho Sedano awake.

"Ochoea"...he said. "Ocho, a question has arisen. We

wish to know if you are related to Hector Sedano."

Ocho opened his eyes and focused on the interpreter,

who appeared reasonably clear. His eyes were

better, much better. He rolled over, men sat

up in bed. He was still in sick bay aboard

Hue City.

"Welcome back to the land of the livingea"...sd the

American sailor.

"It is good to be aliveea"...Ocho whispered.

"Did you ever give up hope?"

"I suppose. I thought I would die, and was waiting

for it. But I always wanted to live."

The sailor grinned. This was the first American he

had ever gotten to know, and he had a good grin, Ocho

thought.

"The officers want to knowea"...the sailor said, "if you

are related to Hector Sedano."

"He is my brother."

"I will tell them."

Ocho nodded, then rubbed his head and stretched. He was

hungry and thirsty. A glass of water was sitting

on a rolling table beside the bed, so he drained it.

"May I have some food?"

"I will bring some."

Ocho looked the sailor in the eyes. "I want

to go back to Cuba. I should never have left."

"I will tell themea"...the sailor said, and left him

there.

William Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini

argued with Toad about how many marines wearing CBW

suits should go into the warhead factory with them. "Just

Tommy and Iea"...Chance said. "The more people that are in there

the greater the chance of an accident."

"How are you going to get your gear in there?"

"An armload at a time. It will take a little

longer, but with only two guys going in and out, this

whole evolution will be safer."

"What if the Cuban Army shows up while you're

working?"

"The marines can defend us until the place goes

up."

They were in a ready room under the flight deck

dressing in a corner under the television set, which was

showing a continuous briefing by the Air

Intelligence types. Radio frequencies,

threat envelopes, timing, call signs, weather,

everything was on the tube.

Carmellini was paying close attention to the

briefers, Chance was arguing with Toad. "And I'm not

taking a rifle or hand grenades or rations or

any of that combat crap."

"A pistol, then."

"Got my own. Don't want two."

"Why are you being so obstinate, Mr. Chance?"

Chance sat down heavily in one of the ready-room

chairs.

"I guess I've got a bad feeling about this

commando stuffea"...he said. "Charging in decked out like

Captain America caret with rifle in hand scares

me silly. Everybody and his brother will start

shooting, and with cultures above-ground in vulnerable

containers ..."...He shivered. "If we sneak in in

civilian clothes ... well, that's what I'm

used to. This military stuff frightens me."

"You're going to look funny walking into a dairy in

civilian clothes with flares on your shoulders if

there are Cuban troops sitting around the place

guarding the cows."

"You're right, I know."...Chance shrugged.

"Gonna be an adventureea"...Tommy Carmellini

tossed in.

"You guys are big boysea"...Toad Tarkington said.

"I'm not going to nursemaid you. But this isn't a

gamea lot of lives are at stake. If you

screw this up and we gotta go back in there later and

fix it, you guys better be dead. Don't bother

coming back."

Toad said it matter-of-factly, as if he were

discussing a payroll deduction. Chance suddenly

felt small.

"Okayea"...he said. "Two other guys in CBW

suits. But I'm in charge. If I go down,

Tommy is."

"Fineea"...sd Toad Tarkington, and went to find an

encrypted telephone.

Terror wasn't going to be enough to keep Alejo

Vargas in office. He knew that. He could put the

fear of God in the little sons of bitches and keep it

there, but to sleep nights in Fidel's house he was

going to have to govern the country, to give a little here, a

little there, and so on. He was prepared to do thathe had

watched Fidel manipulate these people all of his

adult life.

Today he sat in his office at the Ministry

of the Interiorhe had had no time to move to the

presidential palacereceiving the members of the

Council of State, of which he was the president.

"Senor Ferrara, it is a pleasure to see you

again."

Ferrara was short, fat, and wheezed when he moved.

He was a member of the'Council of State and the

minister of electric power. He dropped into a

chair across the desk from Vargas and wiped his forehead

with a handkerchief.

"Good day, Senor President."

Colonel Santana handed Vargas Ferrara's

affidavit. Vargas merely glanced at the

signature, then laid it in his top right-hand drawer

with the others. He didn't read it because he knew

exactly what the affidavit containedan emo-

tional eyewitness account of the murder of Ratil

Castro by Hector Sedano. Vargas and

Santana had drafted the document this morning.

Before each member of the Council of State met with

Vargas, Santana presented them with an

affidavit for signature. Most intuitively

understood that signatures were mandatory, and those that

didn't had the facts of life explained

to them. So far, all had signed.

"I appreciate your support in this matter,

Ferrara."

"I will be frank with you, Vargas. That document

means nothing."...He gestured toward the desk drawer.

"You may be able to crack the whip in Havana, but the

people do not support you. They want Hector Sedano

in the presidential palace."

"They will find a place in their heart for me."

"Fidel Castro lasted for over forty years because he

had the support of the people. The members of the National

Assembly, the Council of State, the ministers,

could not oppose him because they had no base of

support. The Department of State Security

didn't control the population Fidel did."

"He did not tolerate opposition, nor will I."

Ferrara said nothing.

What was it about Ferrara? Something was in the files, but

he hadn't looked at that file in years, and now it

was gone. "Was it your daughter?"

Ferrara's face became a mask.

"Your daughter... something about your daughter..."

He stared into Ferrara's eyes.

"Help me a little."

Even Ferrara's wheezing had stopped.

"Maybe it will come to me."...Alejo Vargas leaned

back in his chair. "Or maybe I will forget

completely."

Santana came in just then, handed him a sheet of

paper, and said, "The ambassador to the United

Nations received this note from the American UN

ambassador."

"Thank you for stopping by, Senor Ferrara. I

appreciate

you executing this affidavit. I look forward to working

with you in the future. Good day."...Ferrara went.

Vargas read the note. "Any other American

reaction to my speech or their president's?"

"Yes,

sir.

As we expected, the American pundits generally

support their president, but there are many who feel

the United States has goaded Cuba

into military adventurism with their political

shunning of Castro. This feeling is widespread in

Europe. Around the world there are many who feel that

Cuba has endured much oppression at America's

hands."

Vargas nodded. All the world roots for the underdog.

'The American carrier battle group that

was in Guantanamo is now south of the Isle of

Pines. They have only a few planes aloft."

"And General Alba? Is he getting troops

into position around the silos?"

"Yes, sir."

"Make sure the air force is on full alert, the

army, the navy, the antiaircraft missile

batteries, everyone. If the Americans come we will

bloody their nose, perhaps even launch a missile.

One missile will teach them a bitter lesson. They

have never seen anything like that virus: they will have no

stomach for it. The error of their ways is about

to become quite apparent."

"You do not believe this 'massive retaliation"

threat?"

"It is laughableea"...he scoffed. "No American

president will ever order the use of weapons of mass

destruction, even in retaliation. The Americans

stopped making war years agothey use force to send

messages to "bad" governments, never to kill

the civilians who support that government. Guilt

is the new American ethic: they would be horrified

at the murder of the hungry."...He waved his hand

dismissively, then became deadly serious:

"The Yanquis may, however, screw up

the courage to use force against our armed forces. If

so, the Cuban people will rally to the flag and we shall

heroically defend our

national honor. And use the missiles to show them the

error of their ways."

"Cubans are patriotsea"...Santana agreed.

"After the Bay of Pigs, Castro was president for

life."

"A man with the right enemies can do anythingea"...Vargas

declared, and smiled.

While Alejo Vargas and Colonel Santana

were conferring in Havana, the Americans opened

fire. Three Spruanceclass destroyers that had

sailed from Mayport soon after sunrise were now

fifty miles off the Florida coast headed south,

well away from the coastal shipping lanes. They

began launching Tomahawk cruise missiles from

the vertical launchers buried in the deck in front

of their bridges. Although each ship carried

forty-eight Tomahawks in their vertical launch

tubes, they only launched twenty missiles

each.

On the bridge of USS

Comte de Grasse

the captain watched with binoculars as his

missiles leveled out from then- launch climb and

disappeared into the sea haze. One of the missiles

dove into the ocean, making a tiny splash.

"There went three million bucksea"...he muttered.

After the launch was complete, he called down

to Combat on the squawk box. "How many

successfully launched?"

"Nineteen, sir."

"And the other ships?"

"Twenty and eighteen, Captain."

"What is the time of flight?"

"An hour and twenty minutes, sir."

"Very well. Report the launch."

Not bad, the captain thought, and gave orders

to secure from General Quarters.

God help the Cubans, he thought, then turned to the

navigator to discuss the voyage to the Florida

Straits, where

Comte de Grasse

and her sister ships would join the Aegis cruisers

already there.

Aboard USS

United States,

Jake Grafton seated himself in the admiral's

raised chair in Combat and surveyed the

computer displays. Gil Pascal, the chief of

staff, was also there along with the ship's air wing commander,

the Combat Control Center officer and the members of his

staff.

Jake leaned over and whispered to Pascal. "See

if you can find me some aspirin, please."

"Yes, sir."

He was looking over the plan and watching the display of

commercial traffic going in and out of Jose Marti

International Airport in"...Havana when a chief

petty officer handed him the encrypted satellite

phone.

"Admiral Grafton, sir."

"This is the president, Admiral. How goes the

war?"

"We already have Tomahawks in the air, sir, but the

Cubans won't know what's coming for an hour or

so."

"We're sweating the program here in Washingtonea"...the

president continued. "Our feet are getting

frosty. If we chicken out, could the airborne

Tomahawks be intentionally crashed?"

Jake Grafton took a deep breath and exhaled

before he answered. "Yes, sir. That is possible."

"Let's hold on to that option. I'm

sitting here with General Totten and the senior

leadership of the Congress. I want your opinion on

this question: Should we postpone this show for a day or two?

Or indefinitely? What are your thoughts?"

Jake Grafton licked his lips. In his mind's

eye he could see ballistic missiles rising from

their silos on pillars of fire, and sailors, just

like the ones manning the computers here in Combat aboard

United States,

sitting in front of radar scopes and computer

keyboards aboard the Aegis cruisers.

"Mr. President, I have also been thinking about the

risks. The only thing I can promise is that we will

do our best.

No one can guarantee results. Still, in my

opinion, considering just the military risks, we should

go now, without delay."

"Thank you, Admiralea"...the president said.

"Jake, this is Tater Totten."

"Good evening, sir."

"Just wanted to say good luckea"...the general said, then the

connection broke.

Jake Grafton handed the handset to the chief.

"Here is your aspirin, Admiralea"...Gil

Pascal said, holding out water and three

white pills.

Four EA-6But Prowlers sat on the ramp at

NAS Key West. Their crews stood lounging

around the aircraft. They had flown in just an hour

ago, and now the fuel trucks were pulling away. The

crews had huddled with the crew of the two C-130

Hercs parked on the ramp, studying charts and checking

frequencies. Now it was time to man up.

As the marines in full conibat gear filed aboard

the Hercs, the crews of the Prowlers strapped in and

started engines. Two of the Prowlers carried three

electronic jamming pods on external stations and

two HARM missiles. HARM stood for

high-speed anti-radiation missile. The other two

Prowlers carried four HARMS and one jamming pod

on the center-line station.

With the engines running, the pilots closed the

Prowlers" canopies and taxied behind the Hercs

toward the duty runway. No one said anything on the

radio.

The flight deck of USS

United States

came alive. A small army of people in brightly

colored shuts swarmed around the airplanes that

packed the deck as the flight crews

manned up and started engines.

Light from the setting sun came in at a low angle

like a bright spotlight, illuminating the towering

cumulus which dotted the surface of the sea, and made

everyone facing west squint or shade their eyes.

Soon the plane guard rescue helicopter

engaged its rotors and lifted off the deck as the first

airplanes began taxiing toward the bow and waist

catapults.

Aboard USS

Hue City

and USS

Guilford Courthouse,

the two Aegis cruisers on station in the Florida

Straits, the afternoon had been a busy one.

Twenty-five miles of ocean separated the two

ships, but they were linked together electronically as

tightly as if they were wired together at a pier.

As the Hercs and EA-6BS taxied at Key

West, and

United States

prepared to launch her air wing, the weapons officers

aboard the cruisers checked the ships' inertia!

systems one more time, compared the GPS locations yet

again, then gave the fire order.

The first of the Tomahawk missiles rose

vertically from their launchers on fountains of fire.

The wings of the missiles popped out, then the

missiles began tilting to the south as they accelerated

away into the evening sky.

The first missiles from each ship were still in sight when

the second ones game roaring from the launchers. Each

ship launched sixteen missiles, then turned

to stay in the racetrack pattern they had been using

to hold station.

Sitting in the Combat Control Center aboard

United States,

Jake Grafton felt the thump as the first bow

catapult fired. A second later he felt the

number-three cat on the waist slam a plane

into the air. His eyes went to the monitor, which was showing

a video feed from a camera mounted high in the ship's

island superstructure. Each catapult stroke was

felt throughout the ship as the planes were thrown into the

sky, one by one.

A half dozen planes were still on deck awaiting

their turn on the catapults when the destroyers in the

carrier's screen began launching Tomahawk

cruise missiles.

The television cameraman in the ship's

island swung his camera to catch the fireworks. The

picture captured the attention of the people in Combat,

who paused to watch the.

missiles roar from their launchers on fountains of

reddish yellow fire, almost too brilliant

to look at.

When the last of the missiles was gone, the camera

returned to the launching planes.

Gil Pascal said to Jake, "It'll go well,

Admiral."...Jake nodded and took another sip of

water.

The sun seemed to be taking its good ol' time going

down, Lieutenant Commander Marcus Gillispie

thought.

He was at the controls of an EA-6But Prowler

that had just launched from

United States.

He had worked his way around towering buildups reaching

up to 10,000 feet and was now above them, looking at

the evening sky. The last of the red sunlight played

on the tops of the clouds, but the canyons between them were

purple and gray shading to black. As Gillispie

climbed he delayed the sun's apparent setting for a

few more minutes. Soon the last of the red and gold

faded from the cloud tops below.

A very high cirrus layer stayed yellow and red for the

longest time as Marcus circled the carrier at

30,000 feet. Two FirstA-18 Hornets

came swimming up from the deepening gloom to join on

him.

"You guys all set"..."...Marcus asked his three

crewmen.

His crewmen counted off in order.

The Prowler was the electronic-warfare version of the

old A-6 Intruder airframe. While the

Prowler bore a superficial resemblance to its

older brother, the electronic suite in the

aircraft could not have been more different: the Prowler was

designed to fight the electronic battle in today's

skies, not drop bombs.

The airframe was also longer than the old A-6,

lengthened to accommodate four people and a massive array

of computerized cockpit displays. The people sat in

ejection seats, two in the front, two in the

back. Only one of the crewmen was a pilot, who

sat in the left front seat: the other three were

electronic-warfare specialists. And they were not

CUBA

all men. One of the guys in back tonight was a

woman, a lieutenant (junior grade) on her

first cruise.

Marcus looked at his watch, then keyed his mike.

He waited while his encryption gear timed in with the

ship's gear, then said, "Strike, this is

Nighthawk One. I have my chicks and am ready

to leave orbit. Request permission to strangle the

parrot."

"Roger, Nighthawk One. Call feet dry."

"Wilco."

Marcus Gillispie rolled the Prowler wings

level heading northwest for the city of Havana. Then

he engaged the autopilot. When he was satisfied

that the autopilot was going to keep the plane straight

and level, he flashed his exterior lights, then

turned them off, leaving only a set of tiny formation

lights illuminated on the sides of Ihe

aircraft above the wing root. Finally he reached

down and turned his radar transponder, his parrot,

off. The Prowler and the two Hornets on her wing were

no longer radiating on any electromagnetic

frequency.

The pilot looked back past his wingtips at the

Hornets. One was on each wing now. Like the

Prowler, their missile racks were loaded

with HARM'S. The Hornets also carried two

Sidewinders, heat-seeking air-to-air

missiles, one on each wingtip, just in case.

Already the displays in the Prowler were alive with

information. The electronic countermeasures officer,

ECMO, in the seat beside the pilot, was really the

tactical commander of the plane. His gear, and that of the

two electronic-warfare officers in the back

cockpit, provided a complete display of the

tactical electronic picture. The information the

computers used was derived from sensors embedded all

over the aircraft in its skin, and from the sensors of

one of the HARM missiles, which was already on line.

The ECMO with Marcus Gillispie was Commander

Schuyler Coleridge, the squadron commanding

officer, who wound up in the right seat of Prowlers because

his eyes

were not quite 20/20 uncorrected when he graduated from

the Naval Academy. The truth of it was, he

thought he had the better job. Pilots, he liked

to say, just drove the bus ECMO'S fought the war.

He had one to fight tonight. The Cubans were going

to get really riled when those Tomahawks started

popping, he thought, and then the fireworks would start.

Just now Coleridge was busy running his

equipment through its built-in tests. Everything was

working, as usual. That routine fact was the greatest

advance of the technological age, in Coleridge's

opinion. In his younger days he had had a bellyful

of fancy equipment that couldn't be maintained.

He was sweating just now, even though the cockpit

temperature was positively balmy. And he

knew his fellow crewmen were sweatingthis was the first time

in combat for all of them.

It will go all right,

he thought. After the tension he had suffered through this afternoon

and evening, Schuyler Coleridge actually welcomed

the catapult shot.

Let's do it and get it over with.

All four of the squadron's EA-6BS were

aloft just now, and the other three also had pairs of

Hornets attached.

As Coleridge looked at the search radars

sweeping the Cuban skies, he wondered if there were

going to be MiGs.

"Okay, peopleea"...Coleridge told his crew, "let's

go to work."

A search radar on the southern coast of Cuba

drew his attention. The signal was being received by the

HARM sensors, which routed the electronic

signal through the plane's computer and displayed it on

the tactical screen.

Coleridge checked his watch. "Any second

nowea"...he muttered to his crewmen.

The Cubans had their search radars wired

into sector facilities, which performed the functions of

air traffic control (Atc) for civilian

aircraft and early warning and ground

control interception (Gci) for military

aircraft. ATC radars in developed countries

rarely searched for non-transponderequipped

targets, but due to the dual usage of these radars,

such sweeps were routine. Consequently one of the

controllers in the Havana sector was the first

to notice a cloud of skin-paint targets closing

on the Cuban coast from the south.

His call to the supervisor was echoed by a call from a

controller looking at targets headed south toward the

north coast of the island.

The shift supervisor stood frozen, staring over the

operator's shoulder at the radar screen. He had

wondered if something like this-might not happen after

Alejo Vargas's television speech, but when he

asked the site manager about the possibility of

Cuba being attacked by the United

States, the man had laughed. "The world has changed

since the Bay of Pigs, Pedro. You are

safehave courage." The response humiliated

the shift supervisor.

Now the supervisor picked up his telephone,

called the manager in his office. "You'd better come

see thisea"...he said with an edge on his voice. "Come

quickly."

The manager was looking over the supervisor's

shoulder when the first Tomahawk crashed into the antenna

of the main search radar on the southern coast. In

seconds three more radars went off the air.

The stunned men turned their attention to the radars on

the north coast, and were just in time to watch the blip of a

Tomahawk from

Hue City

fly right down the throat of the radar and knock it out.

The supervisor turned to the manager and calmly

said, "Apparently the war you didn't believe would

happen is happening now."

The stunned manager watched in horror as screen

after screen went blank.

"The Americans rarely leave things half-done,

or so I've heardea"...the supervisor continued. "I

would bet fifty pesos that this building is

also a target of a cruise missile. If you

gentlemen will excuse me, I think I will go home

for the evening."

With that, he turned and walked briskly from the room.

"Everyone outea"...the facilities manager shouted.

"Outside, everyone outside."

The men at the consoles needed no urging. They

bolted for the doors.

The shift supervisor was outside, walking quickly

for the bus stop, when he heard a Tomahawk. He

fell to the ground and covered his head with his hands as the

missile dove into the roof of the sector control

building and its 750pound warhead exploded with a

thundering boom. Within " the next fifteen seconds,

two more missiles crashed into the building.

After waiting another minute just to be sure, the

supervisor stood and surveyed the damage.

Clouds of tiny dust particles formed an

artificial fog, one illuminated by flame licking

at the gutted building. The stench of explosives

residue and smoke lay heavy in the night air.

One hundred fifty missiles swept across

central Cuba, some coming from the north, some from the

south. The targeting had been done quickly, but the

information that made it possible had been mined

from databases painstakingly constructed from

satellite and aircraft photo and electronic

reconnaissance over a period of years.

Four dozen Tomahawks were targeted against every known

radar dish within a hundred miles of the missile

silossearch, air traffic, antiaircraft

missile, and artillery radarsall of them, two

missiles for each antenna.

Another fifty Tomahawks attacked every Cuban

Air Force base along the five-hundred-mile

length of the island. Some of the Tomahawks carried

bomblets instead of highexplosive warheads: these

swept across aircraft ramps, scattering bomblets

over the parked MiGs, damaging them and setting some

on fire. Other cruise missiles dove headfirst

into the Cuban Air Force's hangars, weapons

storage facil-

ities, and fuel farms. Fixed antiakcraft

surface-to-air missile (Sam) sites

received two or three missiles each.

Alejo Vargas learned of the American attack

when the telephone he was using went dead in his hand.

He frowned, jiggled the hook, then replaced the

handset on its base. Only then did the dull

boom of the explosion in the central

Havana telephone exchange reach him. A

Tomahawk had dived through the roof.

More explosions followed in quick succession as two more

cruise missiles hurled themselves into the telephone

exchange. One of the problems the Americans faced

with the employment of cruise missiles was assessing

damage after the attack. The solution was to fire

multiple missiles at the same target to ensure

an acceptable level of damage.

The thought that the presidential palace might be a

target never occurred to Alejo Vargas. He went

to the nearest window and stood listening to the roar of

Tomahawks overflying the city on their way to radar

and antiakcraft gun and missile installations

sited around Jos6 Marti International

Airport. The five-hundred-knot missiles were

invisible in the darkness, but they weren't quiet.

The missiles had passed when someone near the harbor

opened up with an antiaircraft gun firing

tracers. The bursts of tracers went up like

fireworks and randomly probed the darkness as the

hammering reports echoed over the city.

Colonel Santana came irito the room and

joined Vargas at the window. "The telephone

system in the city is out."

"It's probably out all over Cubaea"...Vargas

replied.

"They are attacking much sooner than you thought they

would."

"No matter. The results will be the same. Get

a car to take us to Radio Havana. I will make

an address to the nation."

"The Americans may use missiles on the

radio stations or power plants."

"It is possible, but I doubt it. Get the car."

Santana went after a car as Vargas thought about what

he would say to fan the fires of patriotism in every

Cuban heart.

The two C-130's Hercs and four EA-6But

Prowlers that had left Key West were level at

ten thousand feet when they crossed the northern

shoreline of Cuba. The C-130's actually were

flying with their wingtip lights on so that the Prowlers

could easily stay in formation with them. Inside the

Hercs the pilots were using global positioning

system (Gps) units to navigate to the missile

silo sites.

The Prowler crews watched their computer displays and

listened to their emission-detection gear, waiting for the

Cubans to turn on a radar, any

radar. The night was deathly quiet. The

Tomahawks had done their work well.

As the Hercs crossed over the first of the dairy

farms, two men leaped from each plane. Forty

seconds later two more went as they crossed over the

second possible lab site. Then the Hercs made

a gentle, lazy 270-degree turn to get lined

up for the run-in to the missile silos.

Jose Marti Airport and the surface-to-air

missile sites that surrounded it were only thirty

miles west. Not a peep from them. If the

Tomahawks missed any of the mobile radars, the

operators had not yet screwed up the courage

to turn them on, for which the Hercules crews were

thankful. The Prowler crews, however, with HARM

missiles ready on the rails, were feeling a bit

disappointed. After all the sweating, there should be more

action.

Aboard USS

United States,

the datalink from the E-3 Sentry AW ACS

over Key West revealed the aerial fire drill

going on over Havana as commercial flights tried

to find their way into Jose Marti Airport without the

aid of air traffic controllers with radar.

Some of the flights announced they were diverting, and

headed for the United States or Jamaica or the

Cayman Islands. The others queued up and landed

VFRIEND as Jake Grafton watched the computer

displays with his fingers crossed. While he didn't

want to be responsible for the crash of a civilian

airliner, he couldn't

delay this operation until there was a temporary lull

in civilian air activity.

As the first Here approached silo one, two men

leaped from the open rear door. Seconds later,

two more leaped from the second transport.

The jumpers fell away from the airplanes like

stones.

Over silo two, marines leaped in pairs from each

of the Hercs, and so on, until the transports had

overflown and dropped recon teams at all six

silo sites. Then they turned northward, toward the

sea.

The Prowlers followed faithfully.

At that moment a SAM control radar near silo

two came on the air, probing for a target.

The Prowlers with the Hercs picked up the signal, of

course, and two of them dropped their wings to turn

back toward the threat.

Forty miles south of silo two, Schuyler

Coleridge also picked up the SAM radar, an

old Soviet Fansong. As he slaved the HARM

to the signal, his pilot, Marcus Gillispie,

turned the plane ten degrees to ppint at the

offending radar. Although the new missiles could be

fired at very large angles, a quick turn by the

launching aircraft shortened the missile's flight

time by a few seconds.

"Fireea"...Coleridge ordered, and Gillispie

punched off the HARM, which shot forward off the rail in

a blaze of fire.

Coleridge keyed the radio. "Fox Threeea"...he

said, letting everyone on the freq know that a beam

rider was in the air.

The HARM zeroed in on the side lobes of the

radiating Fansong, whose operator was trying to lock

up a Here for an SA-2 launch. The operator

never realized the beam rider was in the air.

The missile actually flew into the back of the

antenna dish at almost Mach 3 and went several

feet through it before the warhead exploded.

The warhead contained thousands of 3/16th-inch

tungsten-alloy cubes, which were three times denser

than steel. The warhead blasted these cubes

in all directions,

obliterating the radar antenna and wave guides,

shredding the trailer on which the antenna was mounted, and

knocking out the equipment in the trailer. The flying

cubes also killed the radar operator and severely

wounded the three other occupants of the trailer.

Another HARM launched by one of the FirstA-18

Hornets on the Prowler's wing arrived six

seconds later and impacted a tree just a few

feet from the smoking, gutted trailer. Although the

target radar had been off the air for six

seconds, the missile's strap-down.ineitial

allowed it to fly to the place where the computer memory

believed the radar to be. The shrapnel from the warhead

severed the tree and sprayed the shell of the trailer

yet again, killing one of the already-wounded men.

Major Carlos Corrado was sleeping off a

hangover when the roar of a Tomahawk going over

woke him. His eyes came open. He heard the

staccato popping of bomblets from the Tomahawk, but

had no idea what caused the sound. He thought the

Tomahawk was a low-flying airplane.

Groggy, aching, sick to his stomach, he was hugging

a commode when another Tomahawk went over. In

ten seconds the sound of the bomblets

detonating on the planes parked on the flight line

reached him though his alcoholic haze. Then one of the

planes exploded with a rolling crash that shook the

barracks.

Corrado staggered outside and looked toward the

flight line, where at least three planes were burning

brightly.

"Holy Mother!"

Suddenly sober, Corrado went back inside and

hastily donned his flight suit and boots.

He was jogging toward the flight line when another

Tomahawk went over scattering bomblets. The

missile flew on, out of sight.

As Corrado rounded the corner and the flight line

came into view, the first cruise missile that had

scattered bomb-

lets dove into one of the hangars. There wasn't much

of an explosion, but in seconds a hot fire was

burning in the wooden structure.

Corrado's personal fighter was parked between the

burning hangar and another, which would probably be

struck within seconds. The maintenance men had been

working on the plane today, which was why it was not on its

usual parking place at the head of the

flight line.

Running men helped Corrado push the plane

away from the burning hangar, the wall of which was

perilously close to collapse.

"There is no fuel in the planeea"...someone shouted.

"Get a truckea"...Corrado roared in reply.

"And ammunition for the guns."

The words were no more out of his mouth when the second

missile crashed into the untouched hangar.

Corrado seethed as linemen fueled his plane and

serviced the guns. He was still on the phone in the

dispersal shack talking to someone at the base armory

when the truck carrying missiles braked to a

squealing halt near the fighter, a silver

MiGo-29 Fulcrum. Now he called the

sector GCI site. The telephone rang and

rang, but no one answered.

Corrado stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth and

stomped out to the plane. "Careful there, fools. Do

it right. Do not embarrass me."

He was watching the last of the 30-mm cannon

shells going into the feed trays when one of the Havana

colonels showed up.

"You aren't going up in this thing, are you, Corrado?"

"We are servicing it as a joke, dear

Colonel. Every Saturday night when the

Americans attack we put the cannon shells

in, then take them out on Sunday morning."

"Don't trifle with me, Major. I won't stand

for it."

"You pompous limp-dick! Go find a whore and

let the real men fight."

"Do not insult me, you sot. You stink of rum and

vomit! Show some respect!"

"Why should I? Your putrid face insults you every

day."

The colonel was so angry he spluttered. "I

absolutely forbid you to fly this airplane without

written orders from Havana."

"Court-martial me tomorrow."

"The Americans will destroy this airplane if you

take it off the ground. To fly it is sabotage, a

crime against the state. If you attempt to fly it,

I will shoot you."...The colonel pulled out his pistol

and showed Corrado the business end.

Corrado ignored the gun. "You are a

traitorea"...he roared, "who wants the Americans

to win. Defeatist! Coward!"

"I will shoot anyone who helps you defect in this

airplaneea"...the colonel screamed. He

pointed the pistol at the troops closing the servicing

doors on the MiGo-29.

"Counterrevolutionaries! Saboteurs!"

Corrado used his fist on the colonel. The

second punch, in the ear, did the trick. The man

went to his knees, then onto his face. He

didn't get up. One of the linemen picked up the

pistol while the major massaged his knuckles.

His hand hurt like hell but didn't seem to be

broken.

In truth Corrado wasn't much of a man. He

abandoned a wife and child years ago and hadn't heard

from them sincedidn't want to hear from them, because they would

probably want money. What money he got his

hands on he drank up; he even sold military

equipment on the black market to pay for alcohol.

His ability to fly a fighter plane was his sole

skill, his only worthwhile accomplishment in

thirty-six years of life. Now, unexpectedly,

miraculously, he had a chance to use that skill

to defend something larger than himself, to make his miserable

life mean something and no strutting Havana rooster

was going to cheat him out of it.

Carlos Corrado gestured at the men. "Get the

missiles loaded, you lazy bastardsea"...he

shouted. "There's a war on."

Richard Merriweather rode his parachute into a

cornfield. At least, he thought it was cornlong,

stiff stalks, head-

high. He checked himself over; he was sore, but

nothing broken. He stood and wrestled the chute

toward him, then began scooping out a hole to bury

it. He was finishing the job when he heard someone coming

toward him.

"Sergeant?"

"Yo. You okay?"

"Yeahea"...sd Kirb Handy.

"Set up the GPS. Figure out where we are."

With the parachute disposed of, Merriweather put on his

night-vision goggles and took a careful look

around. He was well out in the center of this field,

near as he could tell.

Merriweather sat down hi the dirt beside Handy, who

was also wearing night-vision goggles. Handy punched

buttons on the GPS.

"This thing says we are a mile and a half

southwest."

"I'll buy that."

"Missed the landing zone by a half mile."

"Not bad at all."...Merriweather unslung his

weapon and checked it over. Then he got to his

feet.

"The other two guys should be aroundea"...Handy muttered.

.

"They'd better be. We don't have much time."

After a careful check of the GPS unit, the two men

started walking northeast toward missile silo

number six. They had gone only about a hundred

meters when they came to the bank of a stream, a

fairly wide stream.

"What the hell is this"..."...Merriweather demanded; and

got out his map. He and Handy huddled disbbh a tree

studying the thing.

"Holy shitea"...Handy said. "We're in the wrong

place. We're at least four miles from the damned

silo. Look here."...He pointed to the stream. "That

has gotta be this thing in front of us."

"So where's the other half of our team"..."...v

"Gotta be over there, near the silo."

"Let's get on the phone, give 'em the bad

news.""...Oh, manea"...Handy moaned softly. "This

ain't good."

The four-man recon team for silo number two

approached the barn via a large seasonal

drainage ditch that ran more or less in the right

direction. Fortunately the sides were relatively

dry, though the ditch contained a few inches of water

arid the bottom felt soft.

They stopped moving when they were about fifty meters from

the barn where they believed the silo to be. They were

completely surrounded by Cuban Army troops.

Two tanks stood outside the barn, trucks were

parked in a nearby grove of trees, and troops were

setting up aeacooking tent near the farmhouse's

well. Other soldiers were down in the woods to the

left, presumably digging latrines.

"Must be a couple hundred of 'emea"...Asel

Tyvek whispered to Janiail Ali, who was lying in

the ditch beside him.

"Sure as hell we can't stay hereea"...Ali

whispered. "It's just a matter of time before somebody

inspects this damn ditch with a flashlight."

"The silo must be in that barn. Gotta be. If we

crawl down this ditch, we should get within thirty

yards of the thing. When the shit hits the fan, maybe

we can get in there."

"Let's spread out, man, fifty yards

apartea"...Jamail Ali suggested. "If they find one

of us, the others will have a chance."...Tyvek

nodded and Ali whispered to the other two men, and

pointed. They disappeared into the darkness.

Tyvek keyed the mike on his helmet-mounted

radio. In seconds he was talking to a controller

aboard USS

United States,

telling her what he saw around the missile silo.

'Twelve minutesea"...the female voice from

United States

said in his ear. "Twelve minutes."

"Roger that, Battlestar. Twelve minutes."

Nojman Tillman and the three men of his recon

team were up TO THEIR knees in cow shit. They waded

through the barn-

yard and shoved the mooing dairy cattle out of the way

so that they could get to the door of the barn, a possible

biological weapons manufacturing site.

"I thought there weren't any damn cows around

hereea"...Tillman's number two muttered

unpleasantly.

Tillman took off his night-vision goggles, got

his flashlight in hand, and took a firm grip on his

rifle. He nodded at his number two, who

carefully opened the barn door, which creaked on its

rusty hinges anyway. Tillman launched

himself through the. door opening. He slipped on something,

fell, and slid for several feet on his chest. Much

to his disgust, he could identify the substance he was

lying in by its smell.

Tillman stood, used the flashlight. He was standing

in a conventional wooden barn that had not been mucked out

in several weeks. Two cows turned and stared at the

light. They looked nervous, as if they wanted

to run, then began bawling. Cursing under his breath,

Norman Tillman went on through the building,

checking it out.

Five minutes later he stepped outside and keyed

his helmet radio. "Battlestar, this is Team

One. Negative results. Nothing here but cows."

"Roger, Team One. Stand by for a pickup."

"Team One standing by. Ou."

"I thought there weren't any cows at these sitesea"...one

of the men said.

"Yeah, but the cows didn't know they were supposed

to be on vacation."

"Maybe we landed at the wrong dairy farm."

Tillman thought that over. Naw. That would be quite a

screwup. More likely, the cows were being held in a

nearby field when the recon photos were taken.

"Sarge, somebody coming."

The men dove facedown into the dirt-and-manure mix

at their feet. The person coming turned out to be a

farmhand in civilian clothes. The marines made him

sit with his

back against the barn wall where they could watch him, but

they didn't tie his hands.

At first the man was frightened. He got over it when

one of the troops offered him a cigarette and lit it

for him.

Tillman crawled over a fence out of the muck and

sat down under a tree to wait for the helicopter.

One man watched the farmer while the other two posted

themselves as sentinels.

"There are several hundred troops and three or

four tanks around silos one and two, Admiral,

and at least two tanks and a squad of soldiers

around three. Four and five appear to be unguarded.

The recon team checking out silo six seems to have

been dropped in the wrong placeonly two of the four

have reported in; they estimate they are three

miles from the silo. We haven't been able to contact

the other two men."

The briefer was an Air Intelligence officer who

zapped the map with a laser flashlight pointer whenever

he mentioned a silo.

Jake Grafton wasn't paying much attention to the

map, which he had memorized. He glanced at his

watch, compared it with a clock on the bulkhead.

"Lab site Alpha is a dairy farm. The

recon team checking out Bravo reports

jackpot, but not many troopsno more than a dozen.

The Osprey will be there in less than ten minutes."

The admiral got up from his chair, stretched, rubbed

the back of his neck. So far it was going better than

he expected it would. So far. Nobody shot down

yet, only one recon team lost...

"Is someone monitoring Cuban radio and

television?"

"Yes, sir. The National Security Agency.

They will keep us advised."

"Ummm."

"What are we going to do about silo six,

Admiral"..."...Gil Pascal asked.

"Nothing we can do. The assault team will have to go into the

landing zone blind."

"The Cuban Army may be waiting."

"They mightea"...Jake Grafton agreed.

He put on his headset and switched between radio

channels. By simply flipping switches he could

monitor the aircraft tactical

channels. In addition, with the new tactical com

units, he and his staff could hear everything that was said

on the helmet radios worn by marine officers and

NCO'S.

Since the signals were rebroadcast and

ultimately picked up by the satellite, they were

also being monitored in the war room of the White

House. One of Jake's concerns was that the

politicians or senior officers would be tempted

to step into the middle of the operation. Although the Washington

kibitzers could not communicate on the nets, they could

quickly get in touch with someone who could, and an order was

an order, even if ill-considered.

He would worry about the politicians when the meddling

started, he decided, not before.

Doll Hanna was the recon team leader at dairy

Bravo. He was sitting on a biological

warhead assembly plant and he knew it. There

wasn't a cow hi sight, two clean, modern

dairy trucks sat near the entrance to the barn, and

Hanna could hear air conditioners running. And the

Cuban Army was guarding the place.

From where he lay he could see two soldiers in

cloth hats with rifles in their arms standing in front

of the main entrance. He knew that there were men

on the door in the rear of the building and in the old

thatch-roofed farmhouse nearby.

Doll Hanna touched the transmit button on his

radio. "Willie, you take the two guys on the

north side. Fred, you got the farmhouse.

Goose, these two on the main entrance."

All three men acknowledged.

Doll was wearing his night-vision goggles so he could

see Goose crawling behind the milk trucks, then

under them, working his way toward the entrance. It was eerie

watching Goose sneak along, knowing the guards

couldn't see him.

Taking out two men was a challenge. Either one could

raise the alarm.

Goose moved like he had all night.

He didn't, Doll Hanna well knew. The

Osprey was out there now circling, but it wouldn't come in

until he called the area clear. Still, the plane

only had so much fuel and the Cubans wouldn't stay

quiet forever.

In fact, a truckload of soldiers could come

rolling in here any minute. The troops in the

Osprey, when they arrived, would set up a

perimeter to keep the Cuban military

away.

"Doll, this is Fred. I'm going to make some

noise over here."

"Okay."

No doubt Goose and Willie heard that

transmission. Noise would cause the guards to do

something. If necessary, Goose and Willie could just

shoot them down.

Hanna heard the faint sound of a slamming door come

from the direction of the farmhouse.

The guards near the main door to the dairy got to their

feet, looked at each other, then started toward the

house. One stopped, told the other to stay, then went

on with his weapon at the ready. As he went around the

truck out of sight of the guard at the door, Goose

got him with a knife.

Then Goose waited.

The man at the door called out to his friend.

Nothing.

The guard looked worried. He called again, got

no answer, then walked forward twenty feet or so.

He stopped, cocked his head, stood looking into the

darkness and trying to hear over the hum of the big air

conditioners.

He was standing like that when Goose stepped out from

behind the truck and threw a knife. The guard

dropped his rifle and pitched forward on his face.

Hanna got up, trotted for the door of the barn.

He passed Goose, who was bending over the second

guard checking to make sure he was dead. Carefully

Doll eased the door open and looked inside.

There were people inside, all right, behind transparent

plastic curtains that formed biological seals.

They were wearing full body-and-head CBW suits,

so they looked like spacemen walking around in there between

trays of cultures and rows of worktables.

They had apparently heard nothing above the noise of the

air-ventilation system, which was a loud, steady hum.

Doll eased his head back. The people in there would have

to wait until the experts arrived.

Major Carlos Corrado walked onto the

runway of the Cienfuegos Air Base. The

runway lights were off and the night was fairly dark

considering that two hangars and at least five

aircraft were ablaze. He could hear people shouting, about

fire, about water, about missiles, about staying under

cover. Straining hard he could hear several cruise

missiles 'and airplanesup there in the

darksamerican airplanes, because in order to save

money, the Cuban Air Force, the

Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria,

did not fly at night.

What was happening? Where was the war?

Carlos Corrado had no illusions about the

difficulties involved in engaging the American

military. His MiGo-29, a stripped Soviet

export version, had only the most rudimentary of

electronic detection equipment and lacked any

active countermeasures. And his GCI site was

probably in the same condition as the burning hangars

behind him.

If he left his radar off he would not beacon on the

Americans" detection equipment. And he would be

electronically blind.

Perhaps if he stayed low ...

Another cruise missile roared overhead and dove

into the last undamaged hangar. The 750-pound

warhead rocked

the base, then the hangar collapsed outward, its

walls silhouetted black against the yellowish white

fireball caused by the warhead.

Well, if the Americans were pounding Cienfuegos,

they must be pulverizing Jose Marti International in

Havana.

Havana. The war would be in Havana, so

that was where he would go.

The V-22 Osprey twin-engine tiltrotor

assault transport was the ultimate flying

machine, or so Rita Moravia liked to tell her

husband, Toad Tarkington. It hovered like a

helicopter and flew like an airplane, operated from

the deck of an airborne assault ship, and was at

its best after the sun went down.

So here she was, in the pilot's seat of a V-22

on her way to a ballistic-missile silo in the

Matanzas Province of central Cuba with 24

combat-ready marines, loaded for bear. She had

made a vertical takeoff from

Kearsarge

and was now thundering along at two thousand feet over the

Cuban countryside at 250 knots, navigating

by GPS and monitoring the forward-looking infrared

display (Flir), which revealed the countryside

ahead as if the sun were shining down from a cloudless

sky.

Rita's copilot was Captain Crash Wade,

USMC, who earned his nickname in an unfortunate

series of ski adventures, not flying accidents.

Wade paid careful attention to the multi-function

displays (Mfd's), computer presentations

of everything the pilots needed to know, on the instrument

panel in front of him.

Rita was paying careful attention to the voice on the

radio, which was that of Asel Ty vek, NCO in

charge of the marine recon team at silo number

two. Rita didn't know his real name, just his call

sign, Blue One.

"Old Rover, this is Blue One. I want you

to hold four minutes out while we get some ordnance

on this LZ. It's sizzling hot."

"Old Rover, Roger."...Rita keyed the intercom.

"Okay, Crash, do a holding pattern."

"How come we got the hot LZ"..."...CRASH wanted

to know.

"Just lucky, I guessea"...Rita replied, and

selected an intercom button that would allow her

to talk to the lieutenant in the cargo bay with his

troops.

Asel Tyvek and Jamail Ali were side by side

in the ditch, just thirty yards or so from the barn. The

other two members of the team were also in the ditch, but

well left and right.

"We ought to get in the barnea"...Ali whispered, "in

case the Cubans want to get in there too."

"Man, those little boards ain't gonna

protect anybody from anything. You just be ready in

case the Cubans start diving into this damned ditch with

us."

"Listen, I can hear our guys coming."

Tyvek strained his ears. Yep, he could just detect

the distinctive beat of chopper rotors. "Snake

One, Blue Oneea"...he whispered into his radio.

"Cuban troops all around the barn. At least

two tanks, eight or nine trucks, a couple

hundred men. We're in a ditch near the barn."

"Got your head down?"

"Yeah."

Tyvek could hear the choppers distinctly now. He

eased his weapon up, put his finger on the safety.

The Cubans were going to be looking for cover very

shortly, and he didn't want to share the ditch.

The SuperCobras eased up over the tree line,

barely moving. Tyvek knew what was going to happen

next, and it did. He heard the roar as

Hellfire antiarmor missiles screamed toward

the tanks, and he heard the explosions as they hit.

He lifted his head above the ditch line for a quick

peek. The tanks were smoking hulks. Even as he

watched, more missiles tore into the trucks.

377

Not a standing figure could be seen. Everyone was on the

ground, crawling or lying still.

The two SuperCobras came closer. The noise

of their engines was quite plain now. The flex

three-barreled 20mm cannons opened up and

rockets shot forward from the pylons under the stubby

wings.

The men in the yard realized they couldn't stay where they

werethe area was a killing zone. Some jumped up and

ran for the ditch. Fortunately few of them seemed

to have weapons in their handsthe attack had caught them

by surprise.

"Here they comeea"...Tyvek shouted, and opened up on the

men closest to the ditch. He couldn't shoot them fast

enough. Men dashed for the cover of the ditch as he and

Ali and the other two poured fire into them and the

SuperCobras lashed the area with ordnance.

Tyvek spoke into the voice-activated mike on

his helmet-mounted radio. "We're gonna need

some help, Old Rover. Whenever you can get here."

Something heavy fell across Tyvek's legs. He

spun and fired at the same time, but the man was already

dead: Ali had shot him.

"They're going into the barnff"...Ali shouted. He fired

a whole magazine at three men trying

to get through the front door. One of the men disappeared

inside.

Jamail Ali scrambled over the edge of the ditch and

ran for the barn while Tyvek screamed at the

SuperCobra gunners not to shoot him.

"Snake One Four, this is Orange

One."...Richard Merriweather let go of the mike and

waited for an answer from the SuperCobra inbound

to silo six.

"Orange One, Snake One Four."

"Man, we're on the wrong side of this river or

creek five or six clicks south of the LZ.

How about seeing if you can find us."

"Are you standing up?"

"In plain sight."

Merriweather and his partner, Kirb Handy, stepped

away from the trees. With their night-vision goggles,

the SuperCobra crewmen should have no trouble seeing

two men standing in an open field, and they didn't.

Both the helicopters settled to earth and the marines

on the ground ran to them.

The pilot of the lead chopper opened his canopy as

Merriweather ran over. "Where are the other guys?"

"Haven't seen them or talked to them. Don't

know."

"Seen any bad guys?"

"Nope. How about a ride over toward the barn?"

"Sit on the skid and grab hold. We run

into trouble, you gotta get off if we drop down

low."

Merriweather gave the pilot a thumbs-up and

arranged himself on the skid. Handy was clinging to the

skid on the other side.

The chopper came slowly into a hover, then dipped

its nose and began moving forward. Merriweather held

on for dear life as the rotor downwash and

slipstream tore at his clothing, helmet, and gear,

and threatened to rip the night vision goggles from his

head.

What a stupid idea this was! How in hell had

they ended up four miles south of the goddamned landing

zone? If he ever again laid eyes on that son of a

bitch who flew the Here, he was going to stomp his

ass.

Bryne and McCormickthose two were missing.

If they were okay surely they would have checked in on

the radio. Maybe their parachutes didn't open.

Maybe they fell into that river. Maybe the

Cubans captured them as soon as they hit the

ground. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

He could see the barn now. The chopper was just a few

feet above the trees, making an approach to the area

right in front of the damn thing. The other chopper was

flying over the trees, three or four hundred

yards awayclose, but not too close.

Nobody in sight around the barn. Not a soul.

Merriweather jumped when the chopper was three feet

off the ground, and fell on his face. He got up,

staggered out from under the rotor blast.

Handy appeared at his elbow.

The glow of a cigarette tip showed in the door.

Someone sitting there!

Merriweather froze, his M-16 at the ready.

A marine sat in the open door smoking d

cigarette. His face and neck were coated with green

and brown camo grease. His helmet and night-vision

goggles lay in the dirt beside him.

Merriweather walked over to the man, who said, "No

one around."

"Where's Bryne?"

McCormick nodded toward the east. "Over there about

a hundred yards. Parachute streamed, backup

didn't open."

"Your radio?"

"Broke. Bryne's got smashed."...McCormick

stood, took a last drag on the cigarette, and

tossed it away. "Been sitting here waiting for you.

The place is deserted, quiet as a graveyard."

"Too bad about Bryne."

"Left two little kids. Too fucking bad."

The interior of the barn was large, empty, and dark.

Merriweather used a flashlight, looked in eve

caret you corner, inspected the ceiling, the floor,

the nooks and crannys.

Then he spoke into his boom microphone.

"Let's get the Osprey into the LZ, set up a

perimeter."

Through her night-vision goggles, Rita Moravia

could see the silo two landing zone and the hovering

SuperCobras plain as day as she made her

approach in the Osprey. She saw bodies lying

everywhere, still-warm bodies radiating heat, and she

saw living men. She transitioned to hovering flight

and lowered the Osprey toward the ground between the

choppers. A cloud of dirt and dust rose up,

obscuring everything. She went on instruments.

On the intercom she told the lieutenant to get

ready.

As soon as the wheels hit, the marines in

back charged out the door of the Osprey and kept right

on going for fifty yards, when they went down on their

stomachs with their rifles at the ready.

Rita didn't wait to see what was going to happen

next. As soon as her crew chief said the last

marine was out, she lifted the Osprey into the air,

climbed straight up out of the dust cloud and only then

began the transition to winged flight.

The lieutenant was named Charlie Herron, and he

had his orders. His primary responsibility was

to ensure that the missile in that silo never left the

ground. As his feet hit the ground, he flopped on

his belly and waited while the roaring Osprey

climbed away. When the dust began to clear, he

spotted the barn and went for it on a run.

Bodies and body parts lay scattered everywhere. The

living men he passed sat in the dirt with empty

hands reaching for the sky. Herron shouted over the

radio, "Cease-fire, cease-fire. They are

surrendering."

Inside the barn he found Asel Tyvek standing over

a dead Cuban.

"Over here, Lieutenant. I think this wooden thing

is a door."

Tyvek and Herron opened the wooden

door, which revealed a steel door with built-in

combination lock. "Think there's anybody in

there"..."...Herron asked. After all, Tyvek had been

here longer than he had.

"I don't know, sir."

"Well, we gotta get in there. Let's blow the

door."

A charge of C-4 took less than a minute

to rig. The two men took cover behind a wooden

stall.

The explosion was sharp, a metallic wham that rang

their ears.

The demolition charge cut the lock clean out of the

door and warped it. The two men pried the door

open. A stairway lit by naked light bulbs led

away downward. Herron

and Tyvek took off their night-vision goggles and

let them dangle around their necks. With Herron in

the lead with his pistol in his hand, the two of them

descended the stairway.

Aboard

United States

Jake Grafton was getting the blowby-blow

update. Air Intelligence officers annotated

the maps and briefers told him of every

report from the silos. "Heavy firefight around

silos one and two.""...ationo opposition at sites

four, five and six.""...Ospreys on the ground at

sites two, three, and four.""...SeaCobra hit and

in trouble at site one.""Team leader into silo

two."..."...Recon leader into silo six."

Each report was entered on a checklist: there were

eight of them, one for each silo and dairy site.

First Lieutenant Charlie Herron and Asel

Tyvek found the control room of silo two

empty. A series of stairs and more steel doors

led downward to the bottom of the concrete structure.

The doors weren't locked. When he opened the last

door, there was the missile towering upward. The shiny,

painted fuselage reflected pinpoints of light from

the naked bulbs arranged around the top and sides of the

concrete silo.

Under the missile was a steel grate over a black

hole. That was the flame pit, to exhaust the flame

and gases when the missile was launched.

A circular steel stairway led up to a

catwalk. From the catwalk it appeared a person

could reach over and gain access to the missile's

warhead and control panel.

Herron bolstered his pistol and turned

to Sergeant Tyvek. "See if you can figure out a

way to safety this bottle rocket so they can't

fire it from Havana while I'm working on it."

"Lieutenant, I've got bad news for you. I

don't know shit about guided missiles."

"Well, you sure as hell don't want to be standing

here

with your thumb up your butt if they light this thing off.

Now go look for a switch or something."

"Yes,

sir"

Tyvek said, and disappeared back up the stairway.

Herron took the steps two at a time. He hoped

he would find what he expected when he got to the

catwalk, although he thought a lot of the old

Russian engineer's explanation had been pure

bullshit. Somebody had found an engineer in

Russia who said he helped design these

missilesthe guy was hi his eighties. They had him

on television for an hour explaining how the business

end of the missile was put together. The engineer spoke

not a word of English so a translator did the

talking. The man had a hell of a memory or was

lying through his teeth. Herron was about to find out which was the

case.

"If it's typical Russian stuffea"...the

American briefer said, "you'll be able to work on it

with pliers and screwdrivers. American designers

could learn a lot from Russian engineers, who

design for ease of maintenance." They gave each

officer and NCO who might get near a missile

a small tool pouch.

Herron examined the access panel, which was only about

six inches long by six inches high, and curved, a

part of the missile's skin. The screws holding it

hi place looked like Dzus fasteners. They

weren't, though: they were plain old screws. Careful

not to drop mem, he unscrewed them one by one and put

the screws hi a shirt pocket. There were a dozen

screws, just like the Russian engineer said. Okay!

So far so good.

Sweat dripped down his nose, ran into his eyes.

He wiped the palms of his hands on his camo pants

and used his sleeve to swab his face, then went back

to twisting the screwdriver. He worked as quickly as he

could. comFinally he took out the last screw.

Carefully, ever so carefully, Herron pulled off

the access panel and laid it on the catwalk by his

feet. He dug a small flashlight from his

pocket. Looking through the access

panel, he could see lots of wires. And a

stainless-steel sphere about the size of a

basketball. That, he concluded, must be the

biological warhead. The missile had been

designed for a nuclear warhead, which would have been round,

so the biological warhead had to go into the same

space. Yet the warhead was too large to come out this

little six-inch access hole.

Charlie Herron reached through the hole to his elbow,

felt upward with his ear against the skin of the missile.

Yes, he could feel the latch. He opened it. Now

down ... one there too. Right, then left.

With the last latch open, he pulled at the panel he

had his arm in. It came out in his hand, making a

hole at least twenty inches across. So the engineer

had been telling the truth.

Herron turned to put the panel on the

catwalk... and dropped it.

It fell, striking the side of the missile, finally

landing on the grate at the bottom with a tinny sound,

much like the lid of a garbage can.

Charlie Herron grabbed the rails of the catwalk and

held on to keep from falling.

He wiped his face on his sleeves, the palms of

his hands on his trousers.

Using a pair of wire snips, the lieutenant

began clipping wires, then pulling the ends out of the

way so he could see how the warhead was held in

place.

William Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini

stepped from their Osprey transport wearing their

CBW suits. Two marines similarly clad

followed them. Each marine carried a cylinder about

six feet long and five inches in diameter

balanced on his shoulder.

Doll Hanna was waiting for them as they approached

the main entrance. "I count five people in the clean

areaea"...he said. "They don't know we're here yet.

The aircirculation system is pretty loud."

Chance went to the partially open door and eased his head

around for a peek. He counted the people inside. Five.

He had been thinking about this moment ever since Jake

Grafton asked him to take out this facility. If

the integrity of the sealed area was broken before the fire

got hot enough to destroy the virus, some of the virus

might escape. If there were any free viruses in

the air inside there, or if one of the culture

trays was broken, intentionally or unintentionally ...

How much was some? Who could say?

He pulled his head back, looked at

Doll Hanna, looked at the marines carrying the

cylinders on their shoulders.

Well, it was a hell of a risk. A

hell

of a risk.

Just then William Henry Chance wished he were back

in New York City, eating dinner at a nice

restaurant or preparing a case for trial or

sitting at home with the woman who had shared his life

for the past ten years. Anywhere but here.

"Give me your rifleea"...he said to Hanna, who

handed him. his M-16.

"Is it loaded?"

"Full. Selector is on single shot. This is

the safety."...Hanna touched it.

"Okayea"...sd William Henry Chance.

He turned to Carmellini. "If worse comes

to worst, you know what to do."

Carmellini didn't say anything.

The dumb shit is probably wishing he was safe and

snug in a federal pen,

Chance thought.

He pointed the rifle at the ground and held it

close to his leg, then eased the door open and

stepped inside. No Cuban saw him.

They were looking intently at something in a sealed unit

with remote-control arms. A radio was playing

somewhere, playing loudly.

Chance stepped into the air lock, stood there looking

at the people while he waited for the interior door

to unlock automatically.

He recognized the voice on the radio: Alejo

Vargas. The gravelly flat delivery was

unmistakable.

"My fellow Cubans, now is the hour to rally to the

defense of our holy mother country. Tonight even as I

speak the nation is under attack from American

military forces, who have leveled the awesome might of

their armed forces against the eleven million

peaceful'people of Cuba."

Ten seconds passed, fifteen, twenty. After a

half minute, the interior door clicked. Chance

pushed it open and stepped into the lab.

Racks holding eight or ten culture trays

each stood beside the benches. He lifted the rifle,

thumbed off the safety, walked forward toward the working

figures, who still had their backs to him. The tables

on both sides of the aisles contained tools, parts,

glassware, specialized instruments.

"Join with me in fighting the forces of the devil, the

forces of capitalism and exploitation that seek

to enslave the Cuban people so that the Yanquis can

manufacture more dollars for themselves...."

One of the workers spotted Chance when he was ten feet

away, and turned in his direction.

Chance gestured with the rifle, motioned for them to raise

their hands. They did so.

still

should just shoot them,

he thought, acutely aware of the culture trays just

beside his elbow, and theirs.

Maybe I won't have to.

Backing up between two tables, he jerked his head

back the way he had come, toward the air lock,

gestured with the barrel of the rifle.

"Our hour of glory is nowea"...Alejo Vargas

thundered, "an hour that will live in all of Cuban

history as the supreme triumphant moment of our

people, that moment in the history of the world when we humble people

struck back against the enslaver and oppressor and

became forever free...."

Slowly, watching Chance, the closest man began

moving, passed him, kept walking with his hands up.

The second man passed.

The third ...

He was turning to look at the fourth man when the man

grabbed the barrel of the rifle with one hand and stabbed

Chance in the solar plexus with the other.

William Henry Chance looked down at the handle

sticking out of his abdomen. A screwdriver! The

man had stabbed him with a screwdriver.

The man was fighting him for the rifle!

A shot. He heard a shot over the noise of the

aircirculation fans. The man who stabbed him

collapsed.

More shots.

Chance fell. His legs didn't work anymore and

he was having trouble breathing.

"Kill the American enslavers wherever you find them,

wherever they choose to shovel their odious filth onto

a committed socialist peopleea"...Vargas shouted over the

radio. "Beloved Cuba, the mother of us all, needs

our strong right arms,"

On the floor, his vision narrowing to tiny points of

light, fighting for air he couldn't get, William

Henry Chance felt someone roll him over. Through the

face plate on the mask of the man who held him,

he could just make out Carmellini's features.

"You should have shot 'emea"...Carmellini shouted.

"You stupid bastard, you should have shot 'em."

Chance was trying to suck in enough air to reply when his

heart stopped.

Carmellini and the two marines in CBW suits

carried the aluminum cylinders they had brought from the

Osprey into the lab and set them down. There was not a

moment to be lost. Bullets had gone through several

of the men lying dead on the floor and punctured the

transparent plastic walls of the facility.

The two marines went back after more cylinders while

Carmellini brought plastic cans of gasoline through

the air

lock. He didn't have time to wait for the lock to work,

so he jammed the door so it would not close.

Please God, don't let the viruses out.

With six cylinders on the floor near the cultures

and ten gallons of gasoline sitting nearby,

Carmellini was ready. The five Cubans who were

working in the lab lay where they had fallen. Chance's

body lay where he died. Carmellini ignored the

bodies as he worked.

He gestured to the marines to leave, then turned to the

nearest cylinder, which was a five-inch-diameter

magnesium flare designed to be dropped from an

airplane. A small steel ring was taped

to the side of the thinghe tore that off and pulled it out as

far as it would go, which was ab"...a foot. Then he gave

it a mighty tug, which tore it loose in his hand.

He laid the cylinder on the wooden floor and

walked for the air lock. As he went through he

released the door, allowing it to close.

He still had a few seconds, so he stood in the

lock as the suction tore at his CBW suit,

trying to cleanse it of dust and stray viruses.

But he was running out of time.

He pushed the emergency button and let himself out of the

lock through the exterior door. Walking swiftly,

he exited the barn and strode for the waiting Osprey.

Doll Hanna was standing there with a rifle in his arms.

"Let's get the men"...Carmellini began, but the

ignition of the flare stopped him. The glare of a

hundred-millioncandlepower magnesium fire

leaked out of the barn through the door and cracks in the

siding.

"Let's get the hell out of here before it goes up like

a rocketea"...Carmellini shouted, and trotted for the

Osprey.

Three minutes later, with all the people aboard and the

plane airborne, he went to the cockpit and

looked back. The fire was as bright as a

welder's torch, so brilliant it hurt his eyes

to look. The heat of the first flare had set off the

second, and so on. The heat from the first few flares

probably caused the gasoline cans to explode,

raising the temperature dramatically and helping

ignite the other flares.

"Think the fire will kill all the viruses"..."...the

pilot asked.

"I don't knowea"...Carmellini said grimly, and went

back to his seat. He didn't have any juice

to waste on the merely worried.

There were just too many Cuban troops at silo one.

The two SuperCobras assigned there expended their

Hellfire missiles on the tanks and trucks,

then scourged the area with 20-mm cannon shells.

Between them the assault choppers fired fifteen

hundred rounds of 20-mm. As the first two

assault choppers left the arena to refuel and

rearm, Battlestar Control aboard

United States

routed other SuperCobras to the site. They began

flaying the area with a vengeance.

The problem was that the troops were fairly well dug

in. Almost a thousand men had arrived in the area early

that morning under an energetic young commander who

had ordered trenches dug and machine guns emplaced

in earth and log fortifications. Two small

bulldozers helped with the digging.

The machine-gun nests were gone now, victims of

Hellfire missiles, but the troops in trenches

were harder to kill. . Fortunately for the Cubans, the

trenches were not straight, but zigged and zagged around

trees and stones and natural obstacles.

The young commander was dead now, killed by a single

cannon shell that tore his head off when he tried

to look over the lip of a trench to find the

SuperCobras. Most of his officers were also dead.

One of the SuperCobras had been shot down

by machine-gun fire. A Cuban trooper with an

AK-47 killed the pilot of another with a lucky

shot in the neck. The first chopper managed

to autorotate down-, and the crew jumped from their

machine into an empty

trench. The copilot of the second machine flew it

out of the battle and headed for the refueling and rearming

site the marines had established in a sugarcane

field between silos three and four.

The SuperCobras on site were almost out of ammo,

and they too went to the refueling site, where they were

fueled from bladders and rearmed with ammo

brought in by Ospreys from

Kearsarge.

Then they rejoined the fray.

The noise of eight assault choppers hovering around

the battlefield that centered on the barn did the

trick. One by one, the Cubans threw down their

weapons and climbed out of their trenches with their hands

over their heads.

Several of the SuperCobras turned on their landing

lights and hovered over the barn, turning this way and that

so that their lights shone over the men, living and dead, that

littered the ground.

Minutes later an Osprey landed just a hundred

feet from the entrance to the barn. Toad Tarkington was

the last man out. He was ten feet from the V-22 and

running like hell when it lifted off and another

settled onto the same spot. Marines with rifles

at the ready came pouring out.

With his engines running and the canopy closed, Major

Carlos Corrado taxied his MiGo-29 toward the

runway at Cienfuegos. Two rnen walked

ahead of the fighter with brooms, sweeping shrapnel and

rocks off the concrete so the fighter's tires would not

be cut. They weren't worried about this stuff going in

the intakes: on the ground the MiGo-29's

engines breathed through blow-down panels on top of the

fuselage while the main intakes remained closed.

Inside the fighter Corrado was watching his

electronic warning equipment. As he suspected,

the Americans had a bunch of radars aloft tonight,

everything from large search radars to fighter radars.

He immediately recognized the radar signature of the

F-14 Tomcat, which he had seen just a week or

so ago out over the Caribbean.

Yep, they were up there, and as soon as his wheels

came up, they would be trying to kill him.

Carlos Corrado taxied his MiGo-29 onto the

runway and shoved the twin throttles forward to the

stop, then into afterburner. The MiGo-29 rocketed

forward. Safely airborne, Corrado raised the

landing gear and came out of afterburner. Passing 400

knots, he lowered the nose and retarded the

throttles, then swung into a turn that would point the

sleek Russian fighter at Havana.

Inside the barn at silo one, Toad Tarkington

took in the carnage at a glance. He was the first

American through the door.

Cannon shells and shrapnel from Hellfire

warheads had played hob with the wooden barn

structure. Holes and splintered boards

and timbers were everywherestanding inside, Toad could see

the landing lights of the helicopters and hear

Americans shouting.

Apparently several dozen men had taken refuge in

the barn; their bloody bodies lay where the bullets

or shrapnel or splinters from the timbers cut them

down. The floor and walls were splattered with

blood.

Toad found the wooden door, got it open, used his

flashlight to examine the steel inner door. He

set three C-4 charges around the combination lock and

took cover.

The charges tore the lock out of the door and warped the

thing so badly it wouldn't open. Toad struggled with

it, only got it open because two marines came in

to check out the interior and gave him a hand.

The stairway on the other side of the door was in

total darkness. Not a glimmer of light.

With his flashlight in his left hand and his pistol in his

right, Toad slowly worked his way down.

He saw lightbulbs in sockets over his head, but

they were not on. Once he came to a switch. He

flipped it on and off several times. No

electrical power.

At the bottom of the stairs he came to a

larger room.

The beam of the flashlight caught an instrument

panel, a control console. A bit of a face ...

Toad brought the light back to the face.

A white face, eyes scrunched against the

flashlight glare. An old man, skinny, with

short white hair, frozen in the flashlight beam,

holding his hands above his head.

The radar operator in the E-3 Sentry AW

ACS plane over Key West was the first to see the

MiGo-29 get airborne from Cienfuegos. He

keyed the intercom and reported the sighting to the

supervisor, who used the computer to verify the

track, then reported it to Battlestar Control.

The AW ACS crew reported the MiGo as a

bogey and assigned it a track number. They would

be able to classify it as to type as soon as the

pilot turned on his radar.

Unfortunately, Carlos Corrado failed

to cooperate. He disleft his radar switch in the off

position. He also stayed low, just a few hundred

meters above the treetops.

There are few places more lonely than the cockpit

of a single-piloted airplane-at night when

surrounded by the enemy. Corrado felt that

loneliness now, felt as if he were the only person

still alive on Spaceship Earth.

The red glow of the cockpit lights comforted him

somewhat: this was really the only home he had ever had.

The lights of Havana were prominent tnhe saw the

glow at fifty miles even though he was barely a

thousand feet above sea level. He climbed a little

higher, looking, and saw a huge fire, quite

brilliant.

Carlos Corrado turned toward the fire. Perhaps

he would find some airborne targets. He turned

on his gun switch and armed the infrared missiles.

The E-2 controller datalinked the bogey information

to the F-14 crew patrolling over central

Cuba at 30,000 feet. There should have been two

F-14's, a section, but one plane had

mechanical problems prior to launch, so there was

only one fighter on this station.

The bogey appeared on the scope of the radar

intercept officer, the RIO, in the rear seat of the

Tomcat. He narrowed the scan of his radar and

tried to acquire a lock on the target, which was

merely a blip that faded in and out against the ground

clutter.

"What the hell is it"..."...the pilot demanded,

referring to the bogey.

"I don't knowea"...was the reply, and therein was the

problem. Without a positive identification,

visual or electronic, of the bogey, the rules

of engagement prohibited the American pilot from

firing his weapons. There were simply too many

American planes and helicopters flying around in

the darkness over Cuba to allow people to blaze away at

unknown targets.

The darkness below was alive with lights, the lights of

cities and small towns, villages, vehicles,

and here and there, antiaircraft artilleryflakwhich was

probing the darkness with random bursts. Fortunately the

gunners could not use radar to acquire a, targetthe

instant they turned a radar on, they drew a

HARM missile from the EA-6BS and

FirstA-18's that circled on their assigned

stations, listening.

The F-14 pilot, whose name was Wallace P.

"Stiff" Hardwick, got on the radio

to Battlestar Control. "Battlestar, Showtime One

Oh Nine, request permission to investigate this

bogey."

"Wait."

Stiff expected that. Being a fighter

pilot in this day and age wasn't like the good old

days, when you went cruising for a fight. Not that he was

there for the good old days, but Stiff had sure heard

about them.

"That goddamn Cuban is gonna zap somebody

while the people on the boat are scratching their

assea"...Stiff told his RIO, Boots

VonRauenzahn.

"Yeahea"...sd Boots, who never paid much attention

to Stiff's grousing.

STEPHEN COONTS

Carlos Corrado saw that a building was on

fire, burning with extraordinary intensity. Never

had he seen such a hot flre. He assumed that the

building had been bombed by a cruise missile or

American plane disand began visually searching the

sky nearby for some hint of another aircraft.

He flew right over the V-22 Osprey carrying

Tommy Carmellini and Doll Hanna back to the

ship and never saw it.

A lot of flak was rising from the outskirts of

Havana, so Carlos turned east, away from it.

In the black velvet ahead he saw lights, and

steered toward them. At 500 knots he

closed quickly, and saw helicopters' landing lights!

They were flying back and forth over a large barn!

They must be Americansthey sure as hell weren't

Cuban. As far as he knew, he was the only

Cuban in the air tonight.

Corrado flew past the areanow down to 400 knots

and did a 90-degree left turn, then a

270-degree right turn. Level, inbound, he

retarded the throttles of the two big engines.

Three hundred knots... he picked the landing

lights on some land of strange-looking twin rotor

helicopter and pushed the nose over just a tad,

bringing the strange chopper into the gunsight. Then he

pulled the trigger on the stick.

The 30-mm cannon shells smashed into Rita

Moravia's Osprey with devastating effect. She

was in the midst of a transition from wing-borne

to rotor-borne flight and had the engines pointed up

at a seventy-degree angle. The rotors were

carrying most of the weight of the twenty-ton ship, so

when the cannon shells ripped into the right engine and it

ceased developing power, the V-22 began sinking

rapidly.

The good engine automatically went to emergency

torque and transferred some of its power to the

rotor of the

bad engine through a driveshaft that connected the two

rotor transmissions.

With shells thumping into the plane and warning lights

flashing, Rita felt the right wing sag. Some of the

shells must have damaged the right transmission!

The ground rushed at her, even as cannon shells

continued to strike the plane.

She pulled the stick back and left, trying to make

the right rotor take a bigger bite.

Then the machine struck the earth and the instrument panel

smashed into her night vision goggles.

In the missile control room, Toad Tarkington

held his flashlight on the old man as he

produced a candle from his pocket and a kitchen match.

He lit the match and applied it to the candle's

wick.

One candle wasn't much, but it did light the room.

Toad turned off the flashlight and stood there

looking at the old man.

Muffled crashing sounds reached him, echoed down the

stairwell, but no one came. Toad's headset was

quiet too, probably since he was underground.

"Do you speak English"..."...Toad asked the

white-haired man in front of him.

The old man shook his head.

"Espanol?"

"Si, senor."

"Well, I don't."

Toad walked over and checked the man, who had no

visible weapons on him.

He had a handful of plastic ties in his pocket.

These ties were issued to every marine for the sole purpose

of securing prisoners' hands, and feet if necessary.

Toad put a tie around the old man's hands. The

man didn't resist; merely sat at the control

console with his face a mask, showing no emotion.

"Cuban"..."...Toad asked.

"Nyet."

"Russki?"

The white head bobbed once, then was still.

Toad used the flashlight to inspect the console,

to examine the instruments. This stuff was old, he could

see that. Everything was mechanical, no digital

gauges or readouts, no computer displays ... the

console reminded Toad of the dashboard of a 1950's

automobile, with round gauges and bezels and ...

Well, without power, all this was academic.

His job was to get that damned warhead out of the

missile, then set demolition charges

to destroy all this stuff, missile, control room,

and all. He left the Russian at the console and

opened the blast-proof door across the room from the

stair where he had entered.

Another stairway led downward.

Toad went as quickly as he dared, still holding the

flashlight hi one hand and his pistol in the other.

He went through one more steel door... and there the

missile stood, white and massive and surreal in

the weak beam of the flashlight.

The aviation radio frequencies exploded when

Rita's plane was shot down as everyone tried

to talk at once.

Battlestar Control finally managed to get a word in

over the babble, a call to Stiff Hardwick. "Go

down for a look. Possible hostile may have shot

down an Osprey."

Stiff didn't need any urging. He rolled the

Tomcat onto its back, popped the speed

brakes, and started down.

"Silo oneea"...Boots said. "This bogey is

flitting around down there like a goddamn bat or

something, mixing it up with the SuperCobras and

Ospreys. Let's not shoot down any of the good

guys."

"No shitea"...sd Stiff, who was sure he could handle

any Cuban fighter pilot alive. This guy was

meat on the table: he just didn't know it yet.

Carlos Corrado pulled out of his strafing ran and

soared up to three thousand feet. He extended out for

eight or nine miles before he laid the fighter over

in a hard turn.

He had seen helicopters d6wn there, at least

two. It was time to use the radar.

As he stabilized inbound he flipped the radar

switch to "transmit." He pushed the button for

moving targets and sure enough, within seconds the

pulse-doppler radar in the nose of the MiGo-29

had found three. The rest of the drill was simplicity

xfhe selected an Aphid missile, locked it

on a target, and fired. Working quickly, he

selected a second missile, locked on a

second target, and fired.

He had to keep the targets illuminated while the

Aphids were in flight, so he continued inbound toward

the silo.

One of the SuperCobras exploded when an Aphid

drilled it dead center. The second missile

tore the tail rotor off its target, which spun

violently into the ground and caught fire.

Carlos Corrado flew across the barn, holding his

heading, extending out before he turned to make another

shooting pass.

Toad Tarkington found the circular steel ladder

leading upward in the missile silo and began

climbing.

When he reached the catwalk he walked around the

missile, examining the skin. There was the little access

port, six inches by six inches, with the dozen

screws! That had to be it.

Toad Tarkington put the flashlight under his left

armpit and got out a screwdriver.

He had three screws out when the flashlight

slipped out of his armpit and fell. It bounced off the

catwalk and went on down beside the missile, breaking

when it hit the grate at the bottom.

The darkness in the silo was total.

Toad Tarkington cursed softly, and went back

to taking out screws. He worked by feel. Someone would

come along in a minute, he thought, bringing another

flashlight: If

someone didn't, he would take the time to go find

another.

The trick, he knew, would be to hold on to the

screwdriver. He only had one, and if

he dropped it, it would go down the grate.

He heard muffled noises from above, but he couldn't

tell what they were. It didn't really matter,

he decided. Getting this warhead out of this missile

was priority one.

Carefully, working by feel, he removed the screws

from the access panel one by one. When he had the last

one out, he pried at the panel. It came off

easily enough and he laid it on the catwalk near his

feet.

So far so good. He carefully stowed the screwdriver

in his tool bag and wiped the sweat from his face and

hands.

Okay.

Toad reached up to find the latch that the ancient

Russian engineer on television had said should be

here. God knows where the CIA found that guy!

Yep. He found the latch.

He rotated it. Now the latch on the left. He

was having his troubles getting that latch to turn when the

lights came on in the silo.

From instant darkness to glaring light from twenty or more

bulbs.

Toad Tarkington pulled his arm from the missile,

clapped his hands over his eyes and squinted,

waiting for his eyes to adjust.

He could hear a hum. Must be a fan or blower

moving air.

No. The hum was in the missile, just a foot or

two from his head.

Something winding up. The pitch was rising rapidly.

A gyro?

What was going on?

Toad started down the ladder, moving as fast as he

could go, intending to go to the control room to see what in

hell was happening.

He heard a grinding noise, loud, low-pitched, and

looked up. The cap on the silo was opening.

Holy...

He still had his tools. If he could get that access

panel off and cut the guidance wires, the wires

to control the warhead...

Toad Tarkington scrambled back up the ladder,

The little six-by-six access hole gaped at him.

He ran his arm in, trying to reach the other latches

that would allow the large panel to come off.

He got one open. The gyro had ceased

to accelerateit was running steadily now, a

high-pitched steady whine.

Holy shit!

He was out of time: the fire from the missile's engines

would fry him to a cinder.

He heard the igniters firing, popping like jet

engine igniters.

The rocket motors lit with a mighty whoosh.

Toad grabbed for the access hole with both hands,

held on desperately as the missile began

to rise on a column of fire.

The noise was beyond deafeningit was the loudest thing

Toad Tarkington had ever heard, a soul-numbing

roar that made his flesh quiver and vibrated his

teeth.

Rising ... the missile was rising, dragging him off

the catwalk.

He clung to the access hole with all his strength,

The missile came out of the silo, past the floor

of the barn, accelerating, going up, up, up....

The tip of the missile burst through the rotten,

shattered roof and threw wood in every direction.

As it did Toad curled his feet up against the

fuselage of the missile, released his hold on the

access hole, and kicked off.

He flew through the darkness, bounced on the collapsing

roof, felt the blast of furnace heat as the

rocket motors singed him, then he was

falling, falling....

* * *

Stiff Hardwick couldn't believe his eyes. He

had his F-14 Tomcat down at 4,000 feet,

fifteen miles from silo one, and was impatiently

waiting for Boots to sort out the villain from the other

airborne targets in the area when he saw the

ballistic missile rising into the night sky on a

cone of whitehot fire.

"Jesus Christff"...he swore over the radio, "the

bastards have launched one."

"Lock it up, Bootsea"...Stiff screamed, still on

the radio, although he thought he was on the intercom.

"Lock it up and we'll shoot an AMRAAM."...The

acronym stood for advanced medium-range

air-to-air missile.

Boots was trying. The problem was that the ballistic

missile was essentially stationary hi relation to the

earth. It was accelerating upward, of course, but its

velocity over the ground was close to zero just now. The

designers of the F-14 weapons system did not

envision that the crew would want to shoot missiles at

stationary targets, so Boots was having his troubles.

Frustrated, he snarled at Stiff, "Go to heat,

goddamnit. Shoot a "winder at that

exhaust."

"A 'winder ain't gonna dent that fucking

thingea"...Stiff replied, his logic impeccable. He was

on the ICS now. "We'll come up under it and shoot

as it accelerates upward."

"Okay! Okay!"

And that is what he did. As the missile

accelerated upward, Stiff Hardwick kept his

nose down, punched the burners full on and

accelerated in toward the launch site, then pulled

up to put the climbing, accelerating ballistic

missile in front of him.

Now Boots got a radar lock.

The symbology on the HUD was alive, showing the

target, the boresight angle, the drift

angle....

Stiff Hardwick lifted his thumb to fire the first

AMRAAM. As he did an infrared missile from

Carlos Cor-

CUBA

.

rado's MiGo-29 went up his right tailpipe and

blew a stabilator off the F-14.

Jake Grafton heard all of it. "A missile

is in the air! Just came out of silo

oneff"...was the shout over the radio.

He picked up the red telephone, the direct

satellite connection with the White House.

"Mr. President, I don't know what happened,

but apparently the Cubans have launched one."

The president must have heard the shouts over the net the

same as Jake did. His question was, "What is the

target?"

Jake had the targets memorized. "It came out of

silo one, sir. The target is Atlanta."

"Thank you, Admiralea"...the president said

mechanically, and hung up.

When Toad Tarkington came to, the night was

quiet. He was lying on cool earth, the sky above

was dark... and there was a marine standing over him with his

mouth moving.

He was deaf. He had lost his hearing.

Toad sat up, fell over, forced himself into a

sitting po caret sition again. He ached all over,

every muscle and tendon screamed in protest. But he

was alive.

He got to his feet, swaying. The marine helped

steady him. .

The barn was right there beside him.

He pulled his pistol, staggered for the

entrance.

The interior was a shambles, the stench nearly unbearable

from bodies fried and seared by the exhaust of the

missile.

Toad pulled boards out of the way to get to the open

door that led down to the control room.

The lights were still on. Using a palm on one wall

to steady himself, he descended the stair.

The old man was still sitting at the console, still wearing

the tie around his wrists.

He looked at Toad dispassionately.

"You bastardea"...Toad said. He said the words but he

could barely hear them. "You foul, evil old man."

A young marine who had followed Toad down the

stairs grabbed the white-haired old man, shoved

him toward the stairs. "Get going, you old fart!

Upstairs,-upstairs."

Tarkington sagged to his knees on the floor, then

stretched out. He was so tired....

Boots VonRauenzahn pulled the ejection

handle, and both he and Stiff Hardwick were launched

from Showtime One Oh Nine a fraction of a second

apart.

Stiff got his wits about him as he hung in his

parachute harness in the night sky. He could

see the ballistic missile accelerating into the

skyit was now a bright spot of light amid the starsand

he could see the burning wreckage of his Tomcat as

it fluttered toward the ground.

He couldn't see the MiGo-29 that had shot him

down. He could hear him though, a rumble that muffled the

fading roar of the ballistic missile heading for

space.

What he didn't know was that Carlps Corrado had

decided that his fuel state didn't allow him to jab

the Americans anymore this night. He was on his

way back to Cienfuegos. With his radar off.

The SPY-IB radar aboard

Hue City

acquired the rising ballistic missile as it rose

over the rim of the earth and transmitted the information

by datalink to

Guilford Courthouse,

which picked up the missile on its own radar

seconds later.

Hue City's

tactical action officer (Tao) in the Combat

Control Center reached out and pushed the squawk-box

button for the bridge, notifying her captain.

"Sir, we have a possible ATBM threat,

bearing one hundred seventy-five degrees

true."...An ATBM was ah antitactical

ballistic missile threat.

The information from the SPY-IB radar was fed into the

Aegis weapons system, which used the radar to control

SM-2 missiles. The TAO waited for the

computer to present the specifics of the target's

trajectory.

Her orders were to shoot down any missiles

launched from Cuba over the Florida Straits.

To do that, she would use the latest version of the SM-2

missile, of which her ship carried eight.

Guilford Courthouse

also carried eight of these weapons, which had an

extraordinary envelope. They could fly as far as

300 nautical mites and as high as

400,000 feet, about 66 nautical miles.

The ballistic missile that was flying now was still

climbing and accelerating. The trick was to shoot it

over the Florida Straits before it got out of the

SM-2 envelope.

The captain was on the squawk box. "You may

fire anytimeea"...the old man said.

The TAO was Lieutenant (junior grade)

Melinda Robinson. Her mother had wanted

her to be a dancer and her father wanted her to take up

law, his profession, but she chose the navy, confounding

them both.

Just now she concentrated on the computer presentations

on the large, 42-inch by 42-inch console in front

of her. . 'Two missilesea"...Robinson ordered.

She was tempted to fire four, but the Cubans might

launch more ballistic missiles, so she couldn't

afford to run out of ammo.

"Fire oneea"...she said.

The SM-2 Tactical Aegis LEAP

(lightweight exoatmospheric projectile)

missile roared from the vertical launcher in front

of the ship's bridge in a blaze of fire.

Two seconds later a second missile roared

after the first.

Guilford Courthouse

also fired two missiles.

The solid fuel third-stage boosters of the

SM-2 missiles lifted them through the bulk of the

atmosphere, and finally separated at an altitude

of 187,000 feet. The second stages ignited

now, lifting the interceptor missiles higher and

higher.

At 300,000 feet the second stage

of the missile pitched

over and ejected the nose cone of the missile,

exposing the infrared sensor of the kinetic-energy

kill vehicle. The motor continued to burn for

another sixteen seconds, carrying the kill

vehicle higher and still faster. At 370,000 feet

the kill vehicle was aligned by its GPS'-AIDED

inertial unit and was ejected from the missile.

Tracking the target now at 375,000 feet of

altitude, the kill vehicle homed in on the

ballistic missile's final stage at 6,000

miles per hour.

And hit it.

The second missile missed by a hundred feet,

the third struck a piece of the target missile,

and the fourth missed by seven feet.

"Admiral Grafton,

Hue City

reports the ballistic missile was destroyed over

the Straits."

Jake picked up the telephone to the White House

and waited for someone to. answer.

"Hue City,

an Aegis cruiser, reports the Cuban

missile was destroyed over the Straits."

The president didn't say anything, but Jake could

feel his relief. When he did speak, he sounded

tired. "How many warheads are still in those

missiles?"

"Only one left, sir. Number four. There are

no Cubans there but the marines are having trouble

getting the warhead out of the missile."

"Are you destroying the missiles when they are

sanitized?"

"Yes, sir. A magnesium flare ignited near

the nose cone. The heat melts it, then finally

ignites the solid fuel and causes an explosion

in the silo."

"You destroyed the warhead manufacturing

facility?"

"Yes, sir."

"All that's left is the lab at the university?"

"That's correct."

"I want it destroyed, Admiral."

'There will be casualties, sir, American and

Cuban. That

thing is smack in the middle of downtown

Havana."..."...I understand that. Destroy it.""...We'll

do it tomorrow nightea"...Jake Grafton said.

Toad Tarkington found Rita putting a

bandage on her copilot, Crash Wade, who had

smashed his face into the instrument panel when their

Osprey crashed. Half the marines aboard had

been injured, but by some miracle only two were

killed. The Osprey was a total loss.

Toad put his hands on Rita's shoulders. She

turned and he saw a large goose-egg bump on

her forehead, one already turning purple. One of her

eyes was also black and slightly swollen.

He knelt beside her. "How's your head?"

"I'm okay. Didn't even knock me out."

"And Crash?"

"The wound that's bleeding is pulpyI think his skull

is smashed. He doesn't seem to recognize me

or anybody."

When she had Wade's wounds bandaged, she and Toad

walked over to a tree and sat down. "Somebody said

a MiGo shot us down, Toad. Cannon holes

all over the right engine nacelle. I couldn't save

it."

She was so tired. When he leaned back against the

tree she put her head down in his lap.

By dawn Jake Grafton had five biological

warheads locked up aboard

United States;

five intermediate-range ballistic missiles

had been melted and burned in their silos; and every

uniformed American and flyable military aircraft

was out of Cuba. It had been a tight squeeze.

Over half the SuperCobra helicopters lacked

the fuel to return across the Florida Straits

to Key West, nor was there room for them on the

decks of U. S. ships off the Cuban coast.

More fuel in flexible bladders was flown in from

Kearsarge.

The choppers were refueled, then launched for Key

West. Four of the SuperCobras had been shot

down, and one had suffered so much battle damage it

was unsafe to fly and had to be destroyed.

Prowlers and Hornets armed with HARM missiles

continued to patrol over central Cuba all night,

ready to attack any radar that came on the air.

Above them F-14's cruised back and forth, ready

to engage any bogey brave enough to-take to the sky.

Several Cuban Army units probed gently at

the marines guarding the silo sites while they

prepared to withdraw, but a few bursts of machine-gun

fire and mortar shells from the marines were enough

to discourage further attention. The marines eventually

disengaged and pulled out unmolested.

When he landed his MiGo-29 at Cienfuegos,

Major Carlos Corrado found that he couldn't

get fuel. Two cruise missiles had

destroyed the fuel trucks and electrical pumping

unit; all fueling would have to be done by hand, a slow,

labor-intensive process. Disgusted, Corrado

walked to the

nearest bar in town, where he was a regular, and

proceeded to get drunk, his usual evening routine.

By dawn he was passed out in his bunk in the

barracks, sleeping it off.

In Havana the next morning, Alejo Vargas

summoned the senior officers of the Cuban Army,

Navy, and Air Force to the presidential palace

for a verbal hiding.

"Cowards, fools, traitorsea"...he raged, so

infuriated he quivered. "We had them in the palm

of our hand, and all we had to do was make a

fist.

A red-handed apprehension of the American pirates

would have brought the applause and respect of the Cuban

people. A haul of American prisoners in uniform

would have given us instant credibility.

This

was our chance."

"Senor Presidente,

the troops would not obey. They refused to attack.

When the troops refuse to obey direct orders,

what would you have us do?"

"Shoot some generalsea"...Vargas snapped. "Shoot

some colonels. Scared men fight best."

"If we shot the generals and colonels the men would

shoot usea"...General Alba explained, and he meant

it. "The Americans are too well equipped,

too well trained, too well armed. Their

firepower is overwhelming. To fight them toeto-toe

would be suicidal, and the men know that."

Alba's logic was unassailable. To complain now that

the Cuban Army, Navy, and Air Force did not

do what he, Vargas, knew they could not do was

illogical and selfdefeating. No military force

on the planet could whip the Americans in a stand-up

fight, which was precisely why he had spent the last

three years developing a biologicalwarfare

capability.

Temper tantrums will get me no place,

Vargas reminded himself, and willed himself back under

control. He sat down at his desk, made a

gesture to the others to seat themselves.

"Gentlemen, we must move forward. I have

trust and confidence in you, and I hope you have the same

in me.

You are of course correctwe cannot overcome the

Americans militarily. We must outwit them

to prevail. With your help, it still can be done."

They sat looking at him expectantly.

"The laboratory where the biological agent for the

warheads was created is in the science building of the

University of Havana. Last night the

Americans destroyed the warhead-manufacturing

facility and our six operational ballistic

missiles. All the American cruise

missiles, the airplanes, the assault troops

were employed to that end. Tonight the Americans will try

to destroy the laboratory."

"Why did they not attack the lab last

night"..."...Alba asked.

"You are the military manyou tell me. Perhaps they

lacked sufficient assets, perhaps they did not have

political support to create massive amounts of

Cuban casualties or sustain significant

American casualtiesI do not know. The most

likely explanation is that they were afraid of

inadvertently releasing biological agents.

Whatever, the lab is still intact and capable

of producing polio viruses in sufficient

quantity to supply a weapons program. The

minds directing the American military effort will not

ignore that laboratory."

"Senor Presidente,

what would you have us do?"

Alejo Vargas smiled. He leaned forward in his

chair and began explaining.

'Tell me what happenedea"...Jake Grafton said

to Toad Tarkington when Toad got back aboard

the carrier. The sky was gray in the east by then, and

Toad was filthy and bone tired.

A stretcher team from the ship's hospital met the

Osprey on the flight deck and took Rita and

Crash Wade below for examination.

Toad told his boss everything he thought lie would

want to know about the battle around silo one, about the

missile rising, holding on to the tiny open access

port, kicking off as the missile went through the barn

roof, falling....

He didn't tell Jake t.he was so scared he

thought he was going to die, and he left out how he

felt when they told him Rita had been shot down

just in front of the barn. He didn't mention how he

felt when he realized she was alive,

bruised up but alive. He didn't have to tell

him, because Jake Grafton could read all that in his

face.

The admiral listened, looking very tired and sad, and

said nothing. Just nodded. Then patted him on the

shoulder and sent him to take a shower and get a few

hours" sleep.

The young CIA officer, Tommy Carmellini, sat

in the dirty-shirt wardroom with a stony face, his

jaw set. Chance was dead and he didn't want

to talk about it.

He talked about the mission when Jake Grafton

asked, however, told the admiral how it had gone,

assured him' that all the cultures in the building

had been destroyed.

"The problem is that the bastards may have cultures

stashed anyplace. Vargas may have a potful under his

bed, just in case."

"Yesea"...Jake Grafton said, "I understand."

He did understand. To be absolutely certain of

eradicating all the poliomyelitis virus in

Cuba, he would need to burn the whole island to a

cinder.

Jake went to his stateroom and tried to get a

few hours" sleep himself.

Tired as he was, sleep wouldn't come. He

tossed and turned as he thought about the battle just ended

and the one still to come. What had he learned from last

night's battle?

What could go wrong tonight?

After an hour of frustration, he took a long, hot

shower. This time when he lay down he dozed off.

Two hours later he was wide awake. He put

on a clean uniform and headed for his office.

Toad was already there huddled with Gil Pascal.

"Rita's okayea"...he told Jake. "Crash

Wade didn't make it. Amazing, isn't it?

One dead, one just bruised."

"Can Rita fly tonight"..."...Jake asked.

Tarkington swallowed hard, nodded once.

"She's the best Osprey pilot we've

gotea"...Jake said. "She's got the flight if she

wants it."

"She'd kill me if I asked you to leave her

behind."

"She probably would, and you such a handsome young stud.

What a loss to the world that would be."

"The Osprey that is bringing the survivor from

Hue City

will be here in twenty minutes. I'll bring

him to your cabin."

"Hector Sedano's brother?"

"That's correct, sir. And the message said he

wants to go back to Cuba."

Maximo Sedano parked his car on the pier so he

wouldn't have to carry his gear very far. Scuba tanks,

wet suit, flippers, weight belt, mask, he

had the whole wardrobe.

He got all that stuff aboard the boat, checked the

fuel, then cast off.

The gold was in Havana Harbor; he was sure of

it. He had a chart that he had laid off in grids,

and he had labeled each grid with a number that

reflected a probability that he thought reasonable.

The area off the main shipping piers didn't seem

promising, nor did the busy areas by the fishing

piers. The area off the private docks where

Fidel had kept his boat seemed to Maximo to be

the most likely, so that was where he would look first.

He took the boat to the center of the most promising

area and anchored it.

It was inevitable that people would see him, so he had told

everyone who asked comt he was studying old

shipwrecks in Havana Harbor. He knew enough

about that dissubject to make it sound

plausi85 could talk about the American

battleship

Maine

and three treasure galleons that went on the rocks

here in the harbor during a hurricane.

If he found it, he would not let on. If he found

the gold, he would leave it where it was until he could

come back for it with paid men and the proper equipment.

If.

Well, every man needs a dream, he reflected, and

this was his. Better this than dying defending a

ballistic-missile silo. Those fools.

The gold was near. He knew it. Sitting here on

the boat he could feel its power.

God damn you, Fidel.

Juan Sedano, @lright-brace 1 Ocho, got out

of the Osprey with a look of wonder on his face. The

airplane, the aircraft carrier, the jets and

noise and hundreds of foreigners, few of whom

spoke his languageit was quite a lot for a young man

who had never before been out of Cuba.

He got out of the Osprey wearing a set of navy

dungarees, a white T-shirt, and a

Hue City

baseball cap, and carrying a pillowcase

containing clothes, underwear, toilet items, and

souvenirs given him by the men and women of

Hue City,

everything from photographs of the ship to COULD'S and

Playboy

magazines.

Toad Tarkington met Ocho on the flight deck

and led the taliea"...broad-shouldered young man into the

island and up the ladder to the flag bridge, where

Jake Grafton and an interpreter, a

lieutenant fighter pilot of Latin descent, were

waiting. Jake took Ocho and the lieutenant

into his at-sea cabin, where the three of them found

chairs.

"When did you leave Cuba"..."...Jake Grafton

asked Ocho after the introductions.

"Six or seven days agoea"...the lieutenant said,

"he isn't sure. He lost track of the days at

sea."

"Tell him that Fidel Castro is dead, that his

brother Hector is in prison."

The Spanish-speaking junior officer did so.

Ocho's reaction was unexpected. Tears streamed

down his face. "He asked me not to leave Cuba.

He must have known that Fidel was dying, that

something was happening. I left anyway."

He wiped at the tears, embarrassed. "I love

my brother. He is my idol, a true man who

believes in something larger

than himself. I cry because I am ashamed of myself, of

what I have done. He asked me not to go and I

refused to listen."

"Tell me about Hectorea"...Jake Grafton

asked gently.

The admiral had expected to spend five minutes

with the boy, but the five minutes became fifteen, then

a half hour, then an hour. Ocho told of going

to meetings with Hector, of the speeches he made, of

his many friends, of antagonizing the regular priests

and the bureaucrats while he spread the message of a

coming new day to anyone who would listen, and many did.

Jake gave Ocho part of his attention while he

thought about the lab in the science building in the

University of Havana.

When Ocho finally began to run dry, Jake picked

up the telephone and called Toad. "I'm in my

at-sea cabinea"...he said, "Have the guys in the

television studio play that tape we downloaded from

the satellite this morning on the television in this

stateroom. No place else."

"Yessir."

Toad called back in three minutes. "Channel

two, Admiral."

Jake turned on the television.

In a few seconds Fidel Castro came on the

screen. He was obviously a sick man. He was

sitting behind a desk, wearing a green fatigue

shirt. -

"Citizens of Cuba, I speak to you today for the last

time. I am fatally ill...."

The young lieutenant translated.

"I wish to spend a few minutes telling you of my

dream for Cuba, my dream of what our nation can

become in the years ahead. It is imperative that

we end bur political isolation, that we join the

family of nations as a full-fledged member.

To make this transition a reality will require

major changes on our part, and a new political

vision...."

Jake Grafton moved closer to the television,

set, adjusted his glasses, and studied the image of

Fidel Castro. The man

was perspiring heavily, obviously in pain, and every so

often he would move slightly, as if seeking a more

comfortable position.

"For years I have watched with admiration and

respectea"...Fidel continued, "as Hector Sedano

moved among our people, making friends, telling them of his

vision for Cuba, preparing them for the changes and

sacrifices that will be necessary in the days to come."

Fidel winced, paused, and took a sip of water

from a glass sitting nearby. Then he continued:

"We as a nation do not have to give up our

revolutionary commitment to social justice

to participate as full-fledged members of the world

economy. We would be traitors to the heroes of the

revolution and ourselves were we to do so. In the past few

years the Church, in which so many Cubans believe,

has come to understand that one cannot be a true Christian

without an active commitment to social justice, the

commitment that every loyal Cuban carries in his breast

as his birthright. The Church has changed to join us.

Now we also must change.

"The time has come for this government to renounce

communism, to embrace private enterprise, to act

as a referee to ensure that every Cuban has a decent

job that pays a living wage and every enterprise pays

its fair share of taxes..."

In less than a minute Fidel reached his

peroration:

"Hector Sedano is the man I believe best

able to lead our nation into this future."

The tape ended anticlimactically a few

seconds later. A tired, haggard Fidel

spoke to someone off-camera, said, "That's enough."

Jake Grafton reached out, turned off the

television.

Ocho was stunned. "I thought Fidel was dead!"

"He is dead. He made this tape before he died."

"That was not a live performance?"

"No. A film, a videotape."

"And you have itff"...Ocho's eyes were wide in amaze-

STEPHEN COONTS

ment. "They must have played the videotape on

television, and you copied it. But if it has been

on television in Havana, why is Hector in

prison?"

"The tape has never been on televisionea"...Jake

said. "As far as I know, you are the very first Cuban

to see it since it was made."

Ocho stared, trying to understand. Finally he asked,

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I was wonderingea"...Jake Grafton said, "if you

would take it back to the lady who gave it to us. I

believe she is your aunt by marriage,

Mercedes Sedano?"

"Mercedesff"...Ocho gaped. "She was Fidel's

mistress. Why did she give you the tape?"

"You will have to ask her. Will you return the tape

to her?"

"Of course. When do you want me to do this?""...This

evening, I think. By the way, are you

hungry?""...Oh, yes. I like the hamburger.

Muy bueno."

Jake and the lieutenant took Ocho to the flag

wardroom for lunch. Ocho talked of baseball, of

Cuba, of his brother Hector, and Hector's

dreams for a free Cuba. He talked even with his

mouth full, so the lieutenant who was translating

didn't get much to eat. Jake let the young

Cuban talk.

After lunch the admiral asked for Tommy

Carmellini, so Toad Tarkington went looking for

him. Carmellini was asleep. He smelled of

liquor, which Toad ignoredafter all, the man was

a civilian.

When Toad got Carmellini into the admiral's

office, he asked the chief petty officer to bring,

coffee, which Carmellini accepted gratefully.

"I've been thinking about your commentea"...Jake

Grafton said.

"What comment"..."...Carmellini asked between sips of hot

black coffee.

"About Vargas having jugs of cultures under his

bed."

"Umm."...Carmellini drank more coffee. When he

saw that the admiral was expecting him to say more, he

shrugged. "That was a flippant comment. I'm

sorry."

Jake Grafton scratched his chin. "I thought it

was... profound, in a way."

"How's that?"

"We can't burn the island down."

"That would be impracticalea"...Carmellini agreed.

"We'd have eleven million Cubans to house and

feed afterwards."

"So where does that leave us?"

Tommy Carmellini searched the faces of the naval

officers.

"There's a presidential directive against

assassinating heads of stateea"...the CIA man said

cautiously.

"I have seen references to such a directiveea"...Jake

Grafc ton said, "though I haven't read the thing."

'Trust me. It exists."

"Friend, I believe you. That's sound public

policy and I don't have anything like that in mind. Our

objective is the lab and the cultures: that's more

than enough to keep us busy. You've been there before and know

the layout. Will you go back with us tonight?"

Tommy Carmellini nodded slowly. "I

appreciate your asking, Admiral. I'd be

delighted."

"We are planning a military assault. It is

going to be a holy mess, I think. Vargas will

probably ambush us on the way in or

booby-trap the lab to blow up"...af we've fought our

way in there. Maybe both."

"He's that kind of guyea"...Carmellini agreed.

"Hector Sedano's brother is aboard ship.

He was-picked up floating in the ocean north of

Cuba two days ago after the boat he was on

sank. Everyone else aboard drowned or was a

victim of shark attack. This kid is either

Hector's brother or a liar of Clintonian

dimensions. They call him El Ocho. I want you

to talk to him, feel him out. He impressed me as

an extremely competent, capable young man. Talk

to him, then come back and tell me what you think."

STEPHEN COONTS

Toad Tarkington was in the Air Intelligence

Center studying satellite images and radar

images from an E-3 Sentry AW ACS

plane flying a race track pattern over the

Florida Straits. The University of Havana

science building was at the center of all the images.

"What's happening in Havana"..."...Jake asked.

"The streets are full of peopleea"...Toad said.

"Especially around La Cabana Prison. Do you

think they are there to break Hector out?"

"They're there because he isea"...Jake muttered, and used

a magnifying glass to study the infrared images

of the science building.

Toad pointed at the picture with the tip of a pen.

'Tankea"...he said. "Vargas is going to be waiting

with his guns loaded."

"Is he taking cultures out of the building? Do

any of the specialists in Maryland have any opinions

on that?"

"No one has seen any milk trucks. He'd be

a fool to haul that stuff through Havana in a

regular truck."

"Desperate men do foolish thingsea"...Jake

Grafton said, and laid the magnifying glass

back on the table.

As the sun was setting, Jake received a call from the

White House. "I just watched that tape of

Fidelea"...the president said over the encrypted

circuit.

"It's impressive. We are going to deliver it

to the woman who gave it to us, see if she can get it

on television tonight."

"Maybe that will pan outea"...the president said. "The

American Interest Section in Havana says that

the crowd outside the prison is restless. Local

police are nowhere in sight."

A wave of relief swept over Jake

Grafton. "That's the best news I've heard

today, sir."

"I'm really worried about those viruses."

"Sir, we'll do what we can."

"Just what are you going to do, Admiral?"

"Improvise as I go along. Do you really want

to know?""...I guess notea"...the president said heavily.

Alejo Vargas was in the office area across the

hallway from the lab in the University of Havana

science building when General Alba came in with

old General Rafael Zerquera, the titular head

of the Cuban armed forces, the chief of staff. The

old man was at least eighty-five,

probably a bit moreea'and he walked with a cane.

With the two military men were several ministers,

including Ferrara and the mayor of Havana. Behind them

were six young officers, all wearing sidearms.

"Sefior Presidents,"

General Zerquera began, and looked around the room

for a chair. He found one and his aide helped him

to it, though Vargas had not invited anyone to sit.

The general looked around slowly, taking everything in.

Through the window one could see the air lock across the

hallway that led to the sealed laboratory.

"I called your office, called the Ministry of

Interior they could not tell me where you were. The army

knew, however."

Vargas said nothing.

"I saw a missile launched last nighteveryone in

central Cuba saw or heard it."...The old man

shook his head, remembering. "Weapons to destroy

cities, kill millionsFidel knew that if the

Yanquis ever found out about the missiles, they would

seek to destroy them. He was right. And he knew that

if the missiles were ever used on the United

States ..."

Zerquera cocked his head, looked at Vargas.

"So you launched at least one, and it never

reached its target."

"What's done is doneea"...Vargas snapped. "How

do you know the missile did not reach its target?"

"Because we are still aliveea"...Zerquera said. "If you

think the Yanquis will not retaliate, you are a

dangerous fool."

Vargas had to restrain himself. Zerquera had many

STEPHEN COONTS

friends; it would be impossible to stop tongues from wagging

if he were shot here, in front of these junior

officers.

"And then there is this labea"...Zerquera continued blandly,

gesturing at the window glass and the laboratory beyond.

"Here you grow the poison to murder Cuba. If you

use this on the Americans, they will retaliate.

If it escapes, Cubans will die horribly."

Vargas took a deep breath before he answered.

"We are moving the cultures."

"Moving them where?"

"To a place where they will be safe."

"Excuse me,

Senor Presidente,

for my failure to understand. What other place in

Cuba has the sealed ventilation system and

biological alarms and other safeguards

that exist here?"

'There are none."

"So there is no place safer than this building."

"Tonight the Americans will probably attack this

building in order to destroy the cultures. They

burned several facilities last night that contained

cultures, and they will probably burn this one. I

am not a prophet, yet I make that prediction

with a great degree of confidence."

"The president of the United States can destroy this

building and everything it contains with a telephone

callea"...General Zerquera said softly, "and there is

nothing on earth we can do about it. In my opinion the

viruses should be destroyed, if it can be safely

done. An escape of the polio viruses from whatever

containers they are in will kill vast numbers of our people

unless the containers are housed in a specially prepared

place, like this laboratory."

Vargas looked exasperated. "You exceed your

authority, General, when you"

Zerquera stopped him with a hand. "No, no, no!

You

exceed

your

authority when you endanger the Cuban people in

order to gratify your ambition."

"Do not cross me, old manea"...Vargas snarled.

"I am not going to interfere in politics, Alejo.

I never

have. The Cuban people will decide who they want to lead

themneither you nor the exiles nor Fidel nor the

president of the United States can dictate who the

Cuban people will choose. For forty years they wanted

Fidel, a loquacious eccentric with much personal

charm and too little wisdom, in my opinion. Yet a

new day has come."

Vargas gestured angrily. "These others have brought

you here with lies about me."

General Rafael Zerquera got to his feet.

He leaned on his cane, examined every face, and ended

with his eyes on Vargas. "A nation matures much like

a man does. Youth makes mistakes: with-age and

experience comes wisdom."

"You waste our timeea"...Vargas said through his teeth.

"You will not remove the cultures from this building. The

risk to the population is too great."

Vargas stepped forward to slap the old fool, but one

of the aides stopped him with the barrel of a pistol

pointed right at his face.

"Another step,

Senor Presidente,"

the young man said, "and you are dead."

Zerquera turned and headed for the door. He went through

it, then took the elevator up to street level.

The civilians followed him. Alba and the young

officers stayed.

"You, Alba? You have betrayed me?"

"I obey my conscienceea"...Alba said, and posted his

men in front of the lab.

"Kill anyone who tries to remove anything from that

roomea"...the general told them.

As the last of the daylight faded, a helicopter from

USS

United States

crossed the southern shore of the island of Cuba flying

northwest. The helicopter stayed low, just above the

treetops. In the cockpit both the pilot and

copilot were wearing night-vision goggles. Behind them

in the bay sat Tommy Carmellini and Ocho

Sedano. A .50-caliber machine gun was mounted

in the open door. The gunner wearing night-vision

goggles sat on the jump seat, looking out.

Overhead EA-6But Prowlers and FirstA-18

Hornets with their HARM missiles ready crossed

the coast at the same time. These

airplanes were there to attack any Cuban radars

that came on the air tonight. So far, all was quiet.

Above the Prowlers and Hornets, F-14

Tomcats patrolled back and forth.

One of the F-14 pilots was Stiff Hardwick.

He and his RIO had ejected last night almost on

top of silo one, so they had ridden home in an

Osprey. The RIO, Boots VonRauenzahn,

sustained a fracture to the left arm; he was

sporting a cast tonight and couldn't fly. The junior

RIO in the squadron, Sailor Karnow, drew

the short straw and was sitting behind Stiff tonight.

Stiff had had a hell of a bad day. First the

shoot-down by a Cuban fighter pilot, then he

endured a day of razzing from his peers, all of whom

had a great laugh at his tale of woe, then tonight he

had to fly with Sailor, a quiet woman who never

had much to say around the testosterone-charged ready

room.

*

On the way out to the plane this evening, Boots had

put his good arm around the shoulders of his pal, Stiff.

"Sailor will take good care of you. Don't fret

the program, shipmate."

Stiff snarled something crude in reply and

stomped off.

He was the sole victim of the entire Cuban Air

Force fighter pilots generally ignored

helicopters, so the Osprey and choppers destroyed

by the MiGo pilot didn't register on Stiff's

radar screen. He was never, ever going to be able

to live down the ignominy of last night. His

squadron mates would probably tattoo a

ribald memorial of his disgrace on his ass some

night when he was drunk or chisel it on his

tombstone. His skipper had almost put somebody

else in his place on the flight schedule tnStiff

begged shamelessly: "You gotta let me flyea"...he

sobbed, "give me a chance to redeem myself."

"You aren't going to do anything stupid out there, are

you"..."...the skipper asked, his voice tinged with

suspicion.

"Oh, no, sirea"...Stiff assured the man.

So here he was, off to slay the dragon if he

came out of his lair. And that goddamn Cuban

fighter jock was probably still swilling free beer

on the tale of the damned Yanqui who pulled up in

front of him and lit his afterburners.

Actually Carlos Corrado hadn't thought much about

his aerial victory. He awoke in the

early afternoon with a blinding headache and treated himself

to his usual hangover regimena cup of coffee,

a cigar, and a puke.

He felt a little better this evenin'g but thought he should

forgo food. He would eat after he flew, he

decided.

The powers that be didn't call the base today, of

course, because the telephone system was hors"...de

combat. Alas, a desk-flying colonel drove

down from Havana.

"Please stay on the ground, Corrado. I would

make that an order, but knowing you, you would disobey it.

So I ask you, please do not fly tonight. Please do

not allow yourself to be shot down. Please do not shame

us."

Carlos Corrado told the colonel where he could

go and what he could do to himself when he got there.

Tonight he sat on the concrete leaning up against a

nose tire of his steed, which was parked between two gutted

hangars. The troops had worked all day getting the

MiGo-

29 fueled, serviced, and armed. It was ready. Now

all Corrado needed to know was where the Americans were

and what they were up to. Of course there was no one

to tell him.

The walls of the hangars were still standing and magnified the

sounds of the sky. As he chewed on his cigar butt,

Corrado could hear jets running high. The growl

was deep and faint.

The planes were American, certainly, and they had

fangs. If he went heedlessly blasting into the sky,

his life was going to come to an abrupt, violent end.

Where were they going?

Havana? He thought they would go there last night and

they never got near the place.

Of course, the headquarters colonel knew nothing.

At least, he had nothing to say. Except that

Corrado was a fool. Only a fool would

attack the American war machine head-on, he

said.

Corrado got out a match and lit the butt. He

puffed, coughed, chewed on the soggy mess.

Well, hell, we're all fools, really.

Does any of this matter? And if so, to whom?

Rita Moravia settled the V-22 onto the

flight deck of the

United States

and watched as Jake Grafton came trotting out from

the island. Toad and a dozen marines carrying

aircraft flares followed him. The

marines had their rifles slung over their shoulders and

wore their Kevlar Helmets. Under the red lights

shining down from the ship's island superstructure, the

shadowy procession looked like something, from a dream, a

vision without substance.

She felt the substance as the men trooped up the

ramp in the back of the plane and the vibrations reached

her through the fuselage. Soon Jake Grafton was

looking over her shoulder.

"Toad says you're okay. Now tell me the

truth."

"I'm okay, Admiral."...She turned and flashed

him a grin. The disbruise on her forehead was yellow

and blue now.

"Whenever you're readyea"...Jake said, and strapped himself

into the crew chief's seat.

It was a rare summer night, with a clean, clear

sky, visibility exceeding twenty miles. A

series of rain showers had swept the Florida

Straits earlier in the evening, cleaning out the haze and

crud.

Major Jack O'Brian sat in the cockpit of

his F-117 looking at the cities below as he

flew down the west coast of Florida, out to sea a

little so as to avoid airplanes on the

airway. O'Brian had one radio tuned to his

squadron's tactical frequency, which he was

merely monitoring in case the mission was scrubbed

at the last minute, and on the other he listened

to Miami Center. He wasn't talking to the air

traffic controller either. His transponder was off.

He was cruising at 36,500 feet, 500 feet

above the flight level, so he should miss any

airliner that he failed to see. Of course, an

airliner going under him would not see him because his plane

was midnight black and the exterior position lights

were off.

The stealth fighter was also invisible to the controller at

Miami Center, who had his radar configured to received

coded replies from transponders. Even if the

controller chose to look at actual radar

returns, the skin paints, he would not have seen the

F-117, which had been designed to be invisible

to radars at long distances.

This feature also hid the stealth fighter from the

American early-warning radars that were sweeping these

skies looking for outlaw aircraft that might be

aloft in the night, such as drug smugglers. And in just

a few minutes it would

hide it from Cuban radars probing the sky

over the Florida Straits. If there were any.

Completely unseen, a black ghost flitting through the

night, Jack O'Brian's F-117 passed

Tampa Bay and continued south toward Key West.

It was flying at Mach .72 to conserve fuel. The

fighter had tanked over Tallahassee and would

tank again in just a few minutes over two hours

near Tampa. But first, a little jaunt to Havana.

Navigation was by global positioning system, GPS.

The pilot had entered the coordinates of his destination

into the computer before he even started the engines of his

airplane, and now the computer and autopilot were

taking him there. All he had to do was monitor the

system, make sure everything functioned as it was

designed to.

O'Brian sucked on his oxygen mask, reached under

it to scratch his nose, readjusted his flight

gloves, and generally fidgeted around in his seat. He

was nervouswho wouldn't be"...b quite confident. After all,

there was very little danger as long as the aircraft's

systems continued to work properly. The craft truly

was invisible at night. Of course it did have a

small infrared signature and could be seen by an

enemy searching the skies with infrared detectors, but

there was no reason to suspect the Cubans

were doing any such thing.

Barring a freak accident, like getting hit by a random

unaimed artillery shell or having a midair with a

civilian plane, the Cubans would never know the

F-117 had even been around. Certainly they would

never see it on radar or with the naked eye. ,

The Cubans might get wise when and if he

dropped some bombs, but even so, there was nothing they

could do about an invisible bomber.

The biggest risk, Jack O'Brian decided, was

having a midair with one of the other three

F-117's that were out here prowling around.

The second plane was running twenty miles back

in trail, a thousand feet above this one, and the others

an equal

distance up and back, all with their own hard

altitudes. Jack glanced again at his altimeter,

just to be sure.

Key West came into view on schedule, a bit

off to his left. The lights of the other Keys

looked like a handful of pearls flung into the blackness

of the night.

Then Key West lay behind and the lights of Havana

appeared ahead. Jack O'Brian reduced power

and set up a descent.

Angel One, the helicopter from

United States,

landed in the cane across the road from Dona Maria

Sedano's house. Ocho got out of the chopper and

walked across the road toward the house. Tommy

Carmellini trailed along behind him.

Mercedes was standing on the porch as Ocho walked up.

They launched themselves at each other, hugged

fiercely. Mercedes didn't even glance at

Carmellini, who was dressed in a civilian shirt

and trousers but had a pistol strapped to his waist.

Mercedes kept her arm around Ocho, took him into the

house where his mother was sitting in a chair.

Carmellini sat on the porch, watched the occasional

car and truck go by. The vehicles slowed, their

passengers gawking at the idling helo, but they

didn't stop.

Soon Ocho came outside with Mercedes. She had

the videotape in her hand. Ocho introduced

Carmellini.

"If the videotape is to have maximum effect, it

should be aired immediatelyea"...Carmellini told Mercedes,

who held the tape tightly with both hands.

"We are going to get Hector out of

prisonea"...Ocho said, anxious to explain.

"We could take 'y to Havana television and leave

you, if you wish."

Mercedes nodded, so Ocho put his arm around her and

led her to the helicopter. Dona Maria was visible

in the door of her cottage; Ocho waved at her

before he climbed into the helo.

Jake Grafton used an infrared viewing scope

to examine the streets of Havana. He was sitting

in the copilot's seat of the V-22 Osprey, which

Rita had racked over in a right bank, orbiting the

downtown. The city was well litnot as well lit

as an American city, but almost. The central core

of the city was darkthe electrical power had yet to be

restored.

The area around the University of Havana seemed

deserted. No tanks, no armored personnel

carriers, no barricades, apparently no

troops. The streets looked empty.

Strange.

Or maybe not so strange. Maybe the lab was

empty, the viruses moved to God knows where.

Everyone in Cuba seemed to be in the streets around

La Cabana Prison; at least a hundred

thousand people, Jake estimated. Bonfires burned in

the streets near the prison, huge fires

that appeared as bright spots of light on the infrared

viewing scope.

He looked for the antiaircraft guns which he knew

were there. He found them, but at this altitude he

couldn't see people around them. "Go lowerea"...he told

Rita. "Two thousand feet."

Still circling to the right, she eased the power and let the

Osprey descend.

Jake turned his attention to the prison, an island

of darkness on the edge of the stricken city center. The

main gate was an opening in a high masonry wall

that surrounded the huge old stone fortress. The gate

seemed to be closed, but at this altitude and

angle, it was difficult to be sure. Immediately behind

the gate sat a tankJake had seen enough of those

planforms to be absolutely certain. Two more

tanks sat in the courtyard ... and some

automobiles. Jake adjusted the magnification

on the infrared viewer. Now he could see

individuals, walking, standing in knots, talking through

the fenceyes, the main gate was closed.

Two antiaircraft batteries sat beside the

prison, old Soviet four-barreled ZPU'S with

optical sights. They were use-

less against fast movers but would be hell on

helicopters.

The roof of the prison was flat, and apparently

empty. No. Correct that. Snipers on the

corners. Damn!

Jake checked the radio to ensure he was on the

proper frequency, then keyed the mike. "Angel

One, this is Battlestar One, where are you?"

"Angel One's on its way to the television station

to deliver a passenger."

"Let me know when you lift off from there."

"Roger that, Battlestar."

"Night Owl Four Two, call your posit."

Jack O'Brian in the F-l 17 replied,

"Night Owl Four Two is overhead at ten."

"La Cabana Prison is our object of

interest tonight, Four Two. I want single bombs,

all to stay within the walls. Can you do that?"

"We can try, sir. You know the limitations on my

equipment as well as I do."

"Your best efforts. Lots of friendlies outside the

wall. First target is the antiaircraft battery

inside the prison walls on the north side. Do

you see it?"

"Wait."...Seconds ticked by.

"Got it."

'The second target is the antiaircraft

battery on the south side."

"Night Owl Four Four is on station at eleven

thousand, Battlestar. Why don't we each run one

of those targets? I'll take the north one."

The two F-l 17 pilots discussed it and

Jake approved.

Jack O'Brian had several possible ways

to drop the bombs he carried in the internal bomb

bay. If he were bombing through a cloud deck or in

rain or snow, he would release the unpowered weapon

over the target and let it steer itself to the GPS

bull's-eye through use of a GPS receiver, a

computer, and a set of canards mounted on the nose of the

weapon. Tonight, since the sky was reasonably clear,

he would illumine the target with a laser beam while

overflying it, and let the unpowered bomb fly itself to the

laser-designated bull's-eye. If O'Brian

could keep the laser beam directly on the spot he

wished the bomb to hit, he should be able to achieve

pinpoint, bomb-in-a-barrel accuracy.

Once again O'Brian carefully checked his

electronic countermeasures panel, which was dark.

The Cubans were off the

aii,

which was comforting.

Now he adjusted the focus of the infrared camera in

the nose. The display blossomed slowly, continued

to change as he got closer and the grazing angle

increased.

He could see the gun plainly owing to the camera's

magnification. He sweetened the crosshairs just a

touch as the airplane motored sedately toward the

target, still cruising at ten thousand feet, and turned

on the laser designator, which was slaved to the

crosshairs.

Jack O'Brian checked his watch. "Night Owl

Four Two is thirty seconds from drop."

"Four Four is a minute out."

"Don't turn on your laser until you see my

thing pop."

"Roger."

Armament panel set for one bomb, laser mode

selected, laser designator on, master armament

switch on, steady on the run-in heading,

autopilot engaged, crosshairs steady on the

targetno driftsystem into Attack. A tone

sounded in his ears and was broadcast over the radio on

the tactical frequency. O'Brian knew that

several people were listening for that tone, including the

pilot of the other F-117 Night Owl Four

Four, Judy Kwiatkowski.

He watched for unexpected wind drift. Not much

tnwhat little wind there was was well within the capability

of the bomb to handle.

Counting down, the second hand on the clock on the

instrument panel ticking ... The release marker

marched down and he felt the thump as the bomb bay

doors snapped open. Immediately thereafter the bomb was

released, the tone stopped, then the doors closed

again.

With the bomb in the air, it was essential that the

crosshairs on the laser designator stay

precisely on the target because the bomb was guiding

itself toward this spot of invisible light.

He took manual control of the crosshairs,

kept them right on the artillery piece beside the old

fortress. ,

The aspect angle of the target was changing, of

course, as the airplane flew over it and beyond. Now

it was behind the plane, the crosshairs right on the

target.

Then, suddenly, the antiaircraft artillery

piece disappeared in a flash as the

five-hundred-pound bomb struck it dead

center.

Thirty seconds later the gun on the south side

of the building was hit by Judy Kwiatkowski's

weapon.

"Very good, Night Owlsea"...Battlestar said. "The

next target is the tank nearest to the main gate.

I think one bomb will discourage the tankers. Four

Four, I want you to bomb the main gate. Tell

me if you see it."

"Four Four has the target."

"How long until the weapons hit?"

"Give us ten minutes to go out and make another

run."

'Ten minutes will do fineea"...Jake Grafton said,

then turned to Rita.

"After the bombs hit the tanks and main gate, I

want you to land on the roof. The guys in back will go

out shooting and take care of the snipers. Let me go

talk to Eckhardt and Toad." Both officers were

riding in the back of the Osprey with the grunts.

Jake unstrapped and got out of the copilot's seat.

In a moment'Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt

climbed into the seat and used the infrared scope.

"See the snipers"..."...the admiral asked. "I want

you and your people to shoot them or capture them,

whatever."

"Yes, sir."...The colonel got out pf the seat.

"Ten minutes, Rita. Start your clock."

"Aye, aye, sirea"...Rita said, and began figuring

the best way to approach the prison.

* * *

A man from the control tower ran to find Carlos

Corrado and tell him that American aircraft were

over Havana. The people in the tower heard the news on

short-wave radio from headquarters.

"Havana."

Corrado threw away his cigar butt and got

into his flying gear.

Five minutes later he was taxiing. He didn't

stop at the end of the runway to check the systems or,

controls, but added power and stroked the burners. The

big fighter responded like a thoroughbred race

horse and lifted off after a short run.

Of course he left his radar off.

Still, the crew of the U.s. Air Force E-3

Sentry over the Isle of Pines picked up a

skin-paint return of the MiGo almost immediately.

"Showtime One Oh Two, we got a bogey

lifting off Cienfuegos, looks like he's on his

way to Havana on the deck. Try

to intercept. Over."

Stiff Hardwick had been airborne for an hour

and ten minutes. The recovery aboard

United States

would begin in exactly thirty-five minutes. This

bogey was on the deck using fuel at a

prodigious rate, and when Stiff came swooping

down from 30,000 feet his fuel consumption would also

go through the roof. Fuel would be tight. Very tight.

If he had to stroke the throttles to drop this

turkey, he was going to need a tanker.

"One Oh Two will probably need a tanker."

"Roger that. Showtime One Oh Seven"...th was

Stiff's wingman, who was orbiting a thousand feet

above Stiff "remain on station."

"One Oh Seven aye."

"Showtime One Oh Two is on the wayea"...Stiff

told the E-3 controller.

"That's the spiritea"...Sailor Karnow said from the rear

cockpit.

"Shut up, babe. Just do your thing and keep the crap

to yourself."

"You got h, dickwick. I'm behind you all the

way."

The helicopter landed in the street in

front of the television station and Mercedes stepped out.

Ocho waved as it lifted off, leaving her standing there with

her hair and skirt blowing wildly, clutching the

videotape.

El Ocho, alive and well! It seemed like a

miracle. Truly, she had thought he was dead, lost

at sea.

"I have seen the tapeea"...Ocho had shouted over the

noise of the helicopter as they rode above the lights

of Havana. "Fidel wanted Hector to lead

Cuba. His opinion will sway many people."

Yes, she nodded, fighting baok tears.

"Why did you give the tape to the Americans?"

"Vargas would have taken it from meea"...she replied.

Ocho accepted that because he knew it was true. That

tape would destroy Alejo Vargas.

"Make them show it on televisionea"...Ocho had

shouted. "We will get Hector out of prison."...He

grinned broadly, showing all his teeth. The future

was arriving all at once.

She watched the helicopter disappear into the night

sky, then turned and walked into the television station.

One of the most horrifying threats any soldier can

face is being in the bull's-eye of a modern guided

weapon. The stealth fighters were out tonight,

dropping their weapons with extraordinary precision.

The bombs came in too fast for the human eye

to follow, especially in the light conditions

prevailing in Havana this night. For the Cuban

troops surrounding the old prison, it was as if a

giant invisible sharpshooter were somewhere in the clouds

hurling bombs. The two bombs on the

antiaircraft guns frightened the soldiers and made

the crowd nervous. Watching from the Osprey, Jake

Grafton thought for a moment the crowd might stampede:

with this many people jamming the streets

that would be a human disaster. Still, he could not take the

risk the guns or tanks would open fire on the

inbound helicopter or the Osprey, both of which he

wanted to land on the prison's roof.

Through the infrared viewer Jake could see the

soldiers instinctively moving away from the tanks.

He could see men getting out of the hatch, jumping to the

ground, walking away.

On the street the crowd was also pushing back, crowding

away from the old fortress.

Minutes passed and nothing happened. The packed

rows of humanity on the street seemed to relax,

to thin as the 'p instinctively sought their own space.

Jake heard the first bomb tone come on.

An officer Jake assumed he was"...an

officerclimbed up on one of the tanks, waved his

arms at his men. his

The bomb tone ceased: the weapon was in the air.

Now the officer standing on the tank put his hands on his

hipsRita had the Osprey down to a thousand feet,

only a mile from the building, set up to begin her

transition to helicopter flight, so the activity in

the prison courtyard was as clear to Jake as if he

had been watching it on television.

"Angel One, this is Battlestar One. Come on

in."

"Roger that, Battlestar."

The Cuban officer was still standing on the tank when it

disappeared in a flash as the bomb hit it.

When the cloud of smoke and debris cleared, no one

was moving within a hundred feet of the blasted tank, of

which only tiny pieces remained. The bomb must have

penetrated the armor in front of or behind the

turret, Jake thought.

Now the second bomb tone ended. Cuban troops

were running out of the prison complex through the main gate,

which Jake belatedly realized was open. The men were

dropping their weapons, throwing away their helmets and

running as fast as their legs could carry them.

The five-hundred-pound bomb from Night Owl Four

Four exploded in the gate and the running men

disappeared in a flash.

"Put it on the roofea"...Jake Grafton told

Rita Moravia.

"Okay, I got this guyea"...Sailor Karnow told

Stiff Hardwick. "He's bogey one."

The symbol was right there in front of Stiff on the

headsup display.

"About thirty miles or soea"...Sailor said

matter-of-factly." She would sound bored if they

were giving her an Academy Award. That was another

thing about her Stiff didn't like. Well, the truth

was, he hated her guts, but he knew better

than to say so in the new modern politically

correct genderneutral navy to which they both

belonged. A few off-thecuff remarks like that to the

boys could torpedo a promising career.

"Lock the son of a bitch upea"...Stiff told his

RIO.

"You can't shoot this dudeea"...Sailor said, still bored

as hell. "There are four stealth fighters flapping

around down there, three Ospreys and a helicopter,

or did you sleep through the brief? You can't shoot

without the blessing of Battlestar Strike, which

you ain't likely to get."

Twenty-five miles now. Stiff had the F-14

coming down like a lawyer on his way to hell, showing

Mach 1.7 on the meter. He was fast crawling up

this MiGo's ass.

"Don't just sit there with your thumb up your heinie,

honey. Get on the goddamn horn."

"Battlestar Strikeea"...Sailor drawled on the

radio. "This is Showtime One Oh Two. We

got us a situation developing out here."

Rita didn't use her landing light until the last

possible moment, snapping it on just in time to judge the

final few seconds of her approach. As it was,

only one of the demoralized snipers on the roof

took a shot at the plane, a wild, unaimed

shot that punched a hole in the fuselage near

the port gear and spent itself against a structural

member. Then the marines charging out of the back of the beast

fired a shot over his head and the sniper threw down his

rifle. The other snipers had already done so.

In seconds thfc chopper from

United States

came out of the darkness and set down alongside the

V-22. Tommy Carmellini and Ocho Sedano

came scrambling out.

All this was new to Ocho. With wide eyes he

looked at the Osprey, at the marines, at the

skyline of Havana, at the bonfires in the

street and the tens of thousands of people.

Toad Tarkington appeared at Jake's elbow.

"I think I know how to get off this roofea"...Toad

said.

"Lead onea"...Jake told him.

"Uh, Showtime One Oh Two, negative on the

permission to shoot. That's negatory, weapons red,

over."

"Strike, goddamn itea"...Stiff Hardwick roared,

"We're sitting right on the tail of a goddamn

MiGo on his way to Havana to kill some of our people.

I got the son of a bitch boresighted."

"Showtime, there are too many friendlies over Havana.

Weapons red, weapons red, over."

"How about I pop this guy with my gun? Request

weapons free for a gunshot. Over."

"Wait."

Stiff was off the power, idling along at about 400

knots', five miles behind the bogey. Of course,

the bogey didn't know he was there. The Cuban

MiGo-29's had very primitive electronic

detection equipment, which consisted of a light

and an auditory signal in the pilot's ear. These

devices told Carlos Corrado he was being

looked at by an American fighter radar but failed

to tell him where or how close the thing was, the two

pieces of information that he needed the most.

As he closed on Havana and listened to the tone and

watched the light, which didn't even flicker,

Carlos Corrado pondered on the irony of knowing

American fighters were

out there somewhere and not being able to do anything about it. If

he turned on his radar, he would beacon to the

Americans, who would then come at him like moths to a

flame. His only chance was to keep the radar off.

If the Americans launched a weapon at him, he

had a few flares he could punch off, of course, and

some chaff. It was not much, but it might be enough. If

it wasn't, well, he had had a good life.

Carlos began looking right and left as he crossed

the suburbs of the city. Amid all the lights he

spotted some fires, and the center of the city was dark,

without power, but all in all, Havana looked

pretty normal. Amazing, that!

"Battlestar Strike, this is Showtime. Still waiting

on that permission. This MiGo is posing right here in

front of me, begging for it. Do I zap it

or what?"

"We are still checking with the air forceea"...Battlestar

told Stiff, "trying to find out exactly where

everyone is. Don't want any accidents out there,

do we?"

Stiff keyed the intercom. "Assholesea"...he roared

at Sailor Karnow. "They are all stupid

fucking assholes."

"I hear thatea"...sd Sailor, sighing. "I've known

it for years. I should have joined the WNBA."

Toad Tarkington led the procession along the dark

corridor of La Cabana prison. Apparently

the power had not yet been restored after the

high-voltage towers fell. Everyone following

Toad had a flashlight.

The corridors were alive with echoing sound, shouts,

curses, doors clanging, screams, shots.

"Hurryea"...Grafton shouted, and ran toward the

shouts.

As he suspected, the mob was in the building. As

he and Toad rounded-* a corner, their flashlights

fell on a solid wall of humanity dragging two

uniformed officers. Carmellini shouted. The human

wall halted.

"This is Ocho Sedanoea"...Carmellini

shouted, "Hector's brother. He is here to free

Hector."

The man dragging a fat officer by the collar of his

uniform demanded, "Who are you"..."...Obviously drunk,

this man had the commandante's pistol in his hand, but he

didn't raise it or point it. The flashlights were

partially blinding him, but he could still see the front end

of Toad's M-16.

"We are here at El Ocho's

request."...Carmellini proclaimed loudly. "He

has asked for our help to free his brother

Hector."

The mob moved forward, probably in response to a

surging push from the people behind.

"Give us the officersea"...Jake said to Carmellini,

"and we will bring Hector from his cell."...Carmellini

shouted the message in Spanish.

The members of the mob didn't like it, but they were facing

six rifles in a narrow stone corridor. The people

at the head of the mob released the officers and turned

to shout at those behind them.

The marines grabbed the two officers and pushed them

away along the corridor.

Carmellini talked earnestly to the officers. "They

will lead us thereea"...he told Jake.

"Colonel Santana arrived an hour ago. He

was with the commandante until just a few minutes ago."

"Hurryea"...Jake Grafton urged. "The mob is

out of control."...He had drawn the .357 Magnum

he wore in a holster around his waist and now had it

hi his right hand.

"Showtime One Oh Two, Strike, the air force

is having trouble confirming the location of all their

machines."

"Strike, this guy is hanging it out, begging for it,

trolling right over the damn city looking for some white

hats to zap. Are you gonna cry at the funeral

after he kills some of our people?"

This comment was of course grossly out of line: Stiff

Hardwick was a mere lieutenantan O-3and the

decisions in Strike were being made by an officer with the

rank

of commanderO-5or even captainO-6. He was

going to be in big trouble when he got back to the

ship, but he didn't care. The primary object of

war was to kill the enemy, and by God, the son of a

bitch was right there. He'd deal with the peckerheads

later.

Another minute passed. They were over the heart of

Havana now. The oily black slash of

Havana Harbor was quite prominent, as were the dozens

of fires that now surrounded the walls of the old La

Cabana fortress.

"This guy is starting a turnea"...Sailor told

Stiff, referring of course to the bogey.

Carlos Corrado should have been searching the night

sky over Havana for the planes he knew were here,

but he wasn't. He was only human. He was

looking at the red warning light and listening to the buzz

that told him that a hostile fighter's radar was

illuminating his aircraft.

The light and tone had been on for five minutes

now. The miracle was that Carlos Corrado was still

alive. Five minutes in front of an

aggressive American fighter pilot was about six

lifetimes ... and

still

the American hadn't pulled the trigger!

Carlos didn't know why, but he suspected the

reason had something to do with the fact they were tooling over

the rooftops of Havana.

Ocho Sedano and the Americans ran through the

corridors of La Cabana Prison until they

came to a massive steel gate. It was closed but

unlocked; they used the commandante's keys

to lock it behind them. Then they entered a cellblock

full of men screaming to be" freed. Hundreds of

arms reached through the bars, trying to reach the

Americans.

The guards led them to Hector, who was in a cell in

a corridor off the main cellblock. "They have no

key to the cellea"...Carmellini told Jake.

"Use C-4. Blow itea"...the admiral said.

Hector reached through the bars and got his hands on

Ocho. They hugged while Jake Grafton held

the flashlight and Tommy Carmellini set the

explosive.

"Have you seen Santana"..."...Carmellini asked

Hector.

"Yes. He was here."

"Where is he now?"

"He heard you coming and ran."

When the plastic explosive blew the lock apart

on Hector's cell, Ocho jerked the door open

and hugged him fiercely. "I apologize,

Hectorea"...he said. "Please forgive me."

Jake Grafton dragged them apart. "There is no

timeea"...he shouted, and pushed them toward the corridor.

The sounds of the mob tearing at the steel bars

barred the way into the cell block could be heard above

the shouts of the men in the cells.

Toad led his party the other way. Another door,

precious seconds wasted while the officers fumbled

for a key, then they were through and going up a stairway.

More stairs, then along a long, dark corridor

lit only by flashlights.

As they rounded a turn someone ahead fired a shot

at them. The bullet spanged off a wall, and

miraculously failed to connect with human flesh:

Suddenly sure, Tommy Carmellini told

Jake, "It's Santana. You go on. I'll

get the bastard."

"We don't have time for personal

vendettasea"...Jake Grafton snapped.

"I'm a civilian, Grafton. I can take

care of myself. Go on!"

Jake led his party onward.

When they came out onto the roof the Osprey's

position lights and flashing anticollision light

revealed a crowd of at least three hundred people.

They completely surrounded the Osprey and helo and the

marines with rifles who held them off. The pilots

must have shut down the engines due to the large number of

people nearby. Lieutenant Colonel

Eckhardt walked back and forth behind the marines, an

im-

posing martial figure if ever there was one.

Fortunately no one in the crowd seemed to be armed.

Jake and Toad forced their way through the crowd.

It was Ocho who stepped in front of the crowd and

began to speak. "This is my brother Hector, the

next president of Cuba."

The crowd cheered lustily.

"I am El Ocho. I wish to know if you love

Cuba?"

"Si!"

they roared.

"Do you believe in Cuba?""..."...SiThat

"Will you fight for Cuba?"

"Si!"

"Will you follow me and put Hector Sedano in the

presidential palace?"

"Si! Si! Si!"

The crowd breathed the word over and over and swarmed around

Ocho.

"Comeea"...sd Jake Grafton, and pulled Hector

toward the Osprey.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

As Jake Grafton and the others climbed

the stairs toward the roof of La Cabana

Prison, Tommy Carmellini doused his

flashlight and held it in his left hand. He stood

in the darkness waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim

light.

He had a pistol that the marines aboard ship had

given him, a 9-mm, that felt cold and comforting in

his grip. He closed his eyes, listened to the cheers

and shouts from the roof, waited until he heard the

chopper and Osprey get airborne.

Finally the corridors of the old fortress grew

quiet.

Santana was in here someplace.

Jake Grafton had his thing and he was hard at it.

William Henry Chance had his thing, trying to control

biological and chemical weapons in Third World

countries, and he had died doing it. Tommy

Carmellini's thing was cracking safes. Sure, he

was doing it for the CIA now instead of stealing diamonds

from rich matrons, but somehow that wasn't enough. There

comes a time in a man's life when he begins to tally

up 4he score. When Carmellini realized

Grafton wasn't going to take the time to step on the

cockroach Santana, he knew he had to.

He stepped forward now, walking the way

Hector had indicated that Santana had gone.

Taking his time in the near-total darknessthere was just enough

light to see the outline of the corridorwalking,

listening, walking, listening again, Tommy Carmellini

moved to the end of the corridor and stopped.

He could hear metal on metal, as if someone was

trying

to open a lock. The sound came'from the corridor

on the right.

Tommy Carmellini bent as low as he could get,

eased his head around the corner.

Yes, the sound was clearer now.

Ever so slowly he edged around the corner, crossed the

corridor to the other side, began moving forward into the

blackness, toward the sound.

The noise stopped.

Carmellini froze. Closed his eyes to concentrate

on the sound.

The pistol was heavy in his hand.

The sound began again.

Forward, ever so stealthily, moving like a glacier, just

flowing slowly, silently, effortlessly....

The man was just ahead. Working on a lock.

Probably on one of those steel gates.

Again the sound stopped.

Carmellini froze, not trusting himself to breathe.

The other man was here, he could feel him. But where?

Time seemed to stop. Tommy Carmellini held his

breath, stood crouched but frozen, knowing that the

slightest sound would give away his position.

Santana was ...

Suddenly Carmellini knew. He was right...

There! He pointed the pistol and pulled the trigger.

The muzzle flash strobed the darkness, and revealed

Santana swinging the butt of his rifle, swinging it

at Carmellini's head.

He tried to duck but the rifle struck his shoulder and

sent him sprawling. He held on to the pistol,

triggered two more shots, which came like giant

thunderclaps, deafening him with their roar.

The flashlight was gone, lost when he fell. His

left shoulder was on fire where the rifle butt

struck him, his arm numb. He could hear Santana

running, shuffling along, the sound fading.

He felt for the flashlight with his right hand, couldn't

find it, paused and listened and searched some more. There!

He picked it up without releasing the pistol. Now

he put the pistol between his legs, tried to work the

flashlight with his right hand. It was broken. He set

it on the floor out of the way.

He listened, heard the faintest of sounds, then

nothing.

Tommy Carmellini slowly got to his feet and

began moving back the way he had come, after

Santana.

"Showtime One Oh Two, Battlestar Strike.

You are cleared to engage the bogey with a gun.

Weapons free gun only, acknowledge."

"Weapons free gun only, ayeea"...sung out

Stiff Hardwick, and jammed his throttles forward

to the mechanical stop. The engines wound up quickly;

Stiff eased the throttles to the left, stroked the

afterburners. The big fighter leaped forward and began

closing the five-mile gap between the two planes.

Carlos Corrado glanced over his left shoulder,

for the hundredth time, expecting to see nothing, but this time

he saw the plume of flame that was Hardwick's

burners.

The Yanqui must be right behind me.

Enough!

He slammed the throttles to the hilt, dropped the

left wing and pulled right up to six Gs. The

MiGo-29 then showed why it was one of the most

maneuverable fighters in the worldit turned on a

dime.

As it did, Carlos Corrado fought the G and

flipped his radar switch to the transmit position.

Leveling up after a 180-degree turn, the radar

scope came alive ... and there was the

Americanclose. Too close! Jesus Christ!

Without time to even consider the problem, Carlos

Corrado punched off an Aphid missile, which

roared off the rail in a blaze of fire straight

for the F-14.

Sailor Karnow saw the bogey wind into a left

turn, and called it to Stiff, who instinctively

lowered his right wing to stay in the MiGo's rear

quadrant.

What Stiff wasn't prepared for was the

unbelievable quickness with which the MiGo-29 whipped

around and pumped off a missile.

The sight of the fiery exhaust of the Aphid missile

coming at him from eleven o'clock and the wailing of the ECM in

his ears, telling him that he was being painted by a

MiGo-

29 pulse-doppler radar, reached Stiff

Hardwick's brain at the very same instant. Before

Stiff could react in any way, the missile shot

over his canopy inches above his head. Fortunately

for Stiff and Sailor and their progeny yet

unborn,, the Aphid had not flown far enough to arm, so

the missile passed harmlessly.

"Holy shit!"

Sailor shouted into her oxygen mask.

Stiff Hardwick hadn't spent the last four years

flying fighters for nothinghis instincts were finely

honed too. As the Aphid went over his head, he

jerked the nose of his fighter toward the closing

MiGo, visible only as a bogey symbol on the

HUD, and pulled the trigger on the stick. The

20-mm M-61 six-barreled cannon in the

nose lit up like a searchlight as a river of fire

streaked into the darkness.

Carlos Corrado saw the finger of God reaching for

him and slammed his stick back, then sideways. The

MiGo's nose came up steeply and the right wing

dropped in a violent whifferdill that carried it up

and out of the way of the fiery stream of cannon shells.

Completing the roll, Carlos Corrado pushed the

nose of his MiGo downward, toward the city, and let

the plane accelerate without afterburners, the light of

which would beacon to the American. Or Americans,

if there were more than one, which was probable.

Carlos pulled out just above the rooftops and thundered

across the city. He had lost track of the

enemy's location

because he could not see him visually or with his radar.

He desperately needed his GCI site just now

to call the enemy's position, but of course the GCI

people had been knocked off the air and were either dead or

drunk.

Still, the contest appealed to his sporting instincts.

He decided to try for one in-parameters missile

shot before he called it a night and went looking for a

bar.

His radar was still on, still looking at nothing.

Without further ado, Carlos pulled the stick back

and let the MiGo's nose climb. Up past the

vertical, G on hard, the MiGo used its

fabulous turning rate to fly half of a very tight

loop. Upside down with its nose on the

horizon, Carlos slammed the stick sideways and

rolled upright The F-14 was out to his left,

turning toward him. Corrado flipped his switches

to select an infrared missile, turned toward the

American until he got a tone in his headset,

and squeezed it off.

Then he killed his radar and turned hard ninety

degrees right to exit the fight.

"Oh, noea"...Stiff Hardwick swore as

he saw the missile coming at him from ten o'clock.

He lit his afterburners and dropped the right wing

slightly and willed the Tomcat to accelerate,

trying to force the missile into an overshoot, while

he punched off chaff and flares with a button on his

right throttle.

The missile tried to make the turn but couldn't.

Perhaps the IR seeker in the nose locked onto a

flare. In any event, as it flew past the tail

of the Tomcat its proximity fuse caused the

warhead to detonate, spraying shrapnel into empty

air.

The MiGo-29 was gone. It had disappeared.

"You know, dickwickea"...Sailor Karnow told her

pilot, "I think God is really trying to tell us

something."

Carlos Corrado knew that he had had more than his

share of luck this night. Although he was flying a

tremendously maneuverable airplane, the

electronic detection and coun-

termeasures systems were generations behind the F-14 that

had followed him around. Why the F-14 had not shot

him down he couldn't guess, but he was wise enough to know

that luck sorely tried is bound to turn.

He decided to put his MiGo on the ground

while it was still in one piece. Fortunately there-was

an airport nearby, Havana's Jos6 Marti

International, right over there in the middle of that vast

dark area. Since there was a war on, someone had

turned off the runway lights.

Corrado pulled off the power, let the fighter slow

to gear speed, then snapped the landing gear down.

Flaps out, retrim, and swing out for an approach

to where the runway ought to be. On final he turned

on his-landing light and searched the darkness below.

There! Concrete.

He squeaked the MiGo on and got on the brakes.

He left the landing light on to taxi.

"Showtime One Oh Two, the MiGo is landing at

Jos6 Marti."...That was the air force controller hi

the Sentry AWACS plane.

Stiff Hardwick was climbing through five thousand

feet at full power when he heard that

transmission. Fortunately he had committed a

map of the Havana area to memory, so he knew

precisely where Jose Marti International lay.

He cut the power and lowered the nose.

"What in hell do you think you're doing,

Stiff"..."...Sailor demanded.

"Shut up."

"We barely got enough fuel to make the tanker as it

is, pea brain. You go swarming around down here for a

few more minutes begging that Cuban to give you-the

shaft and we'll be swimming home."

"I'm gonna get that Cuban son of a bitch.

Gonna strafe him on the ground. Gonna kill that

bastard deader than last week's beer."

Sailor Karnow knew the pilot was serious. Here

was a

frustrated man if ever she had met one. As the

plane dove for the black hole that was Jose'

Marti International, she tried to reason with Stiff:

"You can't shoot the guy on the ground at a

civilian airport. There's no lights down there,

you might kill a bunch of civilians!"

"There he is! I can see the fucking guy

taxiinghe's still got his landing light on!

There he is!"

Sailor Karnow was losing her patience.

"You pull that trigger, Jake Grafton will cut

your balls off, you silly son of a bitch!"

His

Stiff Hardwick knew the jig was up. Sailor

was right he hated women who were always right. He reached

up and safetied the master arm switch. And

kept the Tomcat coming down.

Edged the throttles forward as he dropped lower and

lower, boresighting that barely moving plane down there

with the single landing light shining forward. The needle on the

airspeed indicator crept past Mach 1.

The radio altimeter deedled, he kept going

lower....

"Don't fly into the ground, you idiotff"...Sailor

pleaded from the rear cockpit.

Thfe fear in her voice probably saved both their

lives. Stiff eased back on the stick just a

smidgen, an almost microscopic amount, so the

F-14 rose another ten feet above the ground as

it roared over Carlos Corrado's taxiing

MiGo-29 like a giant supersonic missile.

The American fighter passed a mere four feet

over the MiGo's tail; the shock wave shattered the

MiGo's canopy.

Then Stiff pulled the stick back in his lap and

lit the burners and went rocketing upward like a bat

out of hell.

"Better get on the horn and get us a tanker,

baby, or you're gonna be my date in a life

raft tonight."

Sailor had the last word. "Honest

to God, dickwick, you oughta think about taking up

another line of work."

Tommy Carmellini wondered if he had managed

to put a bullet into Santana. That was a lot

to hope for, but still... three shots, and the man no more

than five, six feet away?

With luck.

A man needs luck as he goes through life.

Life is timing, and timing is- experience plus

luck.

Carmellini wondered just how much experience sneaking

along dark corridors Santana had had through the

years. He hadn't impressed Carmellini as the

sneaking type. One never knew, though.

He found himself moving slower and slower, listening with his

eyes closed caret concentrating. He could

hear...

Breathing. Corning from somewhere ahead. Definitely

breathing.

Jake Grafton had Rita circle out over the

harbor while he talked to other airplanes he had

inbound. After a few minutes, he told her to fly

toward the university.

Looking through the infrared viewer, he could see that the

streets around the university were deserted.

Not a car or truck moving, none parked, no people.

Alejo Vargas was down there, all right.

Jake got out of the copilot's seat and went aft

to talk to Hector Sedano, who was sitting beside

Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt. Jake

pulled one of the Spanish-speaking marines along

to translate.

"Do you know of the biological-warfare laboratory

in the science building of the university?"

No, Hector didn't. Jake took a minute

to explain.

"My government has sent me to destroy the polio

viruses that are in that lab, and the equipment that was used

to grow them. Do you have any objection to me doing that?"

Hector did not, as long as innocent lives were not

lost unnecessarily.

Talking loudly over the aircraft's high internal

noise, Jake continued while the young marine, a

buck sergeant, translated: "I promise you,

we will proceed with all due

care. The stakes are very high, those viruses must be

destroyed. If you will join me in this humanitarian

effort representing the new Cuban government, I

believe the job can be done with a minimum loss of

life."

'Tell me of this laboratoryea"...Hector Sedano

demanded. "What you know of it, and how it came to be."

The feeling was coming back in Tommy Carmellini's

left arm. It hurt like hell now, like someone had

tried to carve on his shoulder with a dull knife.

Ignore the arm. Listen!

He froze. He hadn't realized it, but there were

cells on both- sides of the corridor, cells with

open doors.

Santana must be in one of them. Which one?

A sound like a sigh.

He heard it! From the left, maybe ten feet.

Frozen like a chunk of solid ice, Carmellini

didn't move. He continued to breathe, but very

shallowly, taking all the time in the world.

Minutes passed. How many he couldn't say.

He could hear the murmur of the mob somewhere below. No

doubt they had turned all the prisoners loose.

The other man was being extremely quiet.

Extraordinarily so.

Carmellini finally began moving, reluctantly,

ever so slowly, like the shadow of the sun as it marches

across a stone floor. And he made about the same

amount of noise.

.he was in the cell, feeling his way ...

when his left foot touched something that shouldn't be there.

Like a cat he reacted, the pistol booming faster

than thought.

In the muzzle flash he saw that Santana lay

stretched on his back on the floor, his eyes open

to the ceiling.

The bastard was dead.

From the cockpit Jake Grafton could see the

crowds below on the streets. Rita had the Osprey

flying at 2,000 feet, and

*

Jake could see the swarms of people with his naked eye,

without using the infrared viewer, though he used it

occasionally to check on the progress of the crowd.

Rita swung the Osprey over the university

district, and he picked out the science building.

He watched the mass of humanity flow into the

district, surge along toward the science building.

He used the viewer, steadied it carefully and

cranked up the magnification. Yes, the knot of

humanity at the front of the crowd, that had to be around

Ocho. El Ocho, as the Cubans called him.

The boy was fearless. This afternoon when Jake explained

to Ocho that there was a strong probability that the

soldiers would refuse to fire on the

civilians, might even disobey their officers if

ordered to fire, Ocho merely nodded.

Perhaps the ordeal in the ocean had toughened Ocho, or

perhaps he had always been impervious to fear. That

emotion affected people in an extraordinary variety of

ways, Jake knew.

Looking through the viewer it was difficult to be sure,

but apparently soldiers were joining the crowd with Ocho

as he walked along.

He wanted to let Hector accompany Ocho, but

his better judgment told him no. A single

sniper, one frightened soldier, and the last best hope

of Cuba might be dead in the street. With the

viruses still in that lab, that was a risk Jake

Grafton was not yet prepared to take.

As he watched, he wished he were with Ocho. That

walk must be sublime, he thought.

Ocho Sedano knew a great many people because he had

spent years accompanying his brother to speeches,

sitting in planning sessions, helped him dig

holes to hide weapons. Many more people, however, knew

Ocho. Every Cuban between eight and eighty knew of the

star pitcher who threw the sizzling fastbalis and hit

home runs when his turn

came to bat. Many people recognized him,

shouted to him as he walked along, then decided

to shake his hand and join the throng behind him.

As the human river turned the corner onto the

avenue that led to the university, a knot of soldiers

left the shelter of a doorway and came toward

Ocho. He didn't stop, kept striding along the

center of the street.

"Haltff"...the senior officer shouted. He was a

major. "You are entering a military area! You can go

no farther!"

Ocho didn't even slow his pace. The soldiers

had to join the crowd to keep from being trampled.

"You! Stop these people! This is a secure area,

by order of Alejo Vargas.".

"We will not stop."...Ocho laughed. "Do you think you can

stop the sun from rising?"

The soldiers hurried along, trying to talk

to Ocho, who refused to slow his pace.

"You are El Ocho"..."...one of the younger soldiers asked.

"The days of Vargas are over, my friendea"...Ocho

explained. "Give away your gun and come along with

us."

The sheer numbers and weight of the people pushing along

frightened the major, who had a pistol in his hand.

Even as his subordinates handed their

weapons to the nearest people in civilian clothes, he

placed himself in front of Ocho, who didn't stop

walking,

"I order you to stop, Sedanoff"...he shouted, and

pointed" the pistol at Ocho's head.

"You would make me a martyour, would you"..."...Ocho asked

the major, who was trying to match Ocho's stride.

"Look around you, man. No one can stop them."

The major fired the pistol into the air. His face was

drawn and pale, almost bloodless. "Stop or I

shoot you down, as God is my witness."

"Mi amigo,"

said Ocho Sedano, "for days at sea I was ready

to die; all the fear drained from me. There is none in

my heart now. My death will not stop these people: nothing can

stop the turning of the earth. Still, if you feel you

must kill me, make your peace with God and pull the

trigger."

Then he smiled.

El Ocho was a madman, the major realized. Or

a saint. The major wiped at the perspiration on his

forehead, and handed Ocho the pistol.

Ocho passed the weapon on. He put his arm around

the major's shoulders. "Comeea"...he said.-"We will

walk to the promised land together."

Like a wall of water rushing along a dry arroyo,

the human river flowed along the avenue toward the

university as airplanes droned through the darkness

overhead.

In the foyer of the science building, Alejo Vargas

heard the airplanes. He looked at the

politicians and young soldiers who waited

silently behind him, blocking the doors to the stairs

and the elevator, and he looked at his aides, who were

nervously looking out windows, trying not to fidget.

Where was Santana?

The man should be here: he was Alej6 Vargas's one

loyal friend on this earth.

Vargas paced back and forth, stood in the doorway

and listened to the airplanes, wondered if the troops

he had hidden in the surrounding buildings were loyal,

would still fight. Over two thousand heavily armed men were

waiting for the Americans. This time the Yanquis would

not escape: this time there would be prisoners to parade

before the cameras, vanquished foes to kneel at his

feet as Cuba cheered. This time ...

A car rocketed up to the front of the building and a

man leaped out, a uniformed colonel with the

"Department of State Security. He ran up the

stairs, came running through the door, saw

Vargas and ran toward him.

"The televisionea"...he said breathlessly. "On the

television, they are showing a tape of Fidel."

"Yes"..."...sd Vargas, his brows knitting.

"Fidel made the tape before he died. He wants

Hector Sedano to be the president after him."

"What"..."...Vargas didn't believe a word of it.

"They run the tape, which takes about six minutes,

then run it again, over and over and over."

"That's impossibleea"...Vargas said, turning toward the

politicians, who had moved closer. "Fidel

made no such tape before he died. He wanted

to make a tape naming me as his successor, but

his-illness prevented it."

"They are showing a tape on televisionea"...the

colonel insisted. "Fidel says the nation must

change, and Hector Sedano is the man to lead that

change."

"It's a trickff"...Vargas roared. "The Yanqui

CIA is playing a trick on us."

Every face was openly skeptical.

"Fidel is dead! Don't you people understand that"..."...A

rising symphony of babbling voices and helicopter

noises came through the open door.

"What is happening"..."...Vargas demanded,

turning in that direction. "Where are the soldiers?"

He saw heads climbing the- stairs, many heads,

then a mob of people in civilian clothes and army

uniforms poured through the doorway, forcing their way in.

The room filled rapidly.

People in the doorway stood aside for two men who

walked through together, one a tall, rangy young man and the

other of medium height, wearing a one-piece faded

prison jumpsuit.

They stopped in front of Vargas.

Hector's voice was plainly audible to every person

in the room when he said, "Alejo Vargas, I

arrest you in the name of the Cuban people for the murder of

Raiil Castro."tilde Vargas's hand darted

inside his jacket for a pistol, but before he could get

it out a dozen hands reached for him, pulled him to the

floor, and took the weapon from him.

Maximo Sedano spent the night aboard his yacht

in Havana Harbor. He heard the planes and the

explosions of bombs falling around La Cabana

Prison, but he didn't go ashore. He had worked

until night fell hunting for the gold that he was

sure lay on the floor of Havana Harbor.

He found a great deal of junk and trash, but no

gold.

As the bombs were falling he drank some rum, idly

studied the skyline, thought about gold.

Thirty-seven tons of gold. My God, what a

man could do with a fortune like that! Cars, yachts,

women, all the good things hi life.

He was filthy from the muck and pollution of the harbor.

The water tank on the boat was not large, so he

sponged off as best he could and- resolved to take a

shower ashore at the first opportunity.

The next morning he began diving as soon as the

sun came up. Boats came and went and Maximo

worked steadily. He changed tanks once.

The work was maddening. The most probable location for the

gold was the marina anchorage, where Fidel and Che

must have spent the nights they were anchored. Here is where

they must have dumped the gold overboard!

Yet it wasn't on the floor of the harbor. He

thought mud and sediment might have covered the ingots, but

even when he dug, he could find nothing.

He wasn't being systematic enough, he decided as

he lay exhausted on the deck of his boat, his

broken fingers aching like bad teeth.

He knew he couldn't go on today, so he took the

dinghy and motored ashore. He had his empty

tanks along for the harbormaster to fill.

Tired, working one-handed, Maximo took several

minutes to get the small boat tied up and the empty

air tanks onto the dock. He picked them up and

carried them toward the harbormaster's shack.

The man was sitting inside reading a newspaper.

"Can you fill these"..."...Maximo asked.

The harbormaster looked up to see who was asking, then

brightened. "Senor Sedano, of course. I am so

delighted to hear about your brother. Congratulations."

"What?"

The look of surprise on his face must have shocked

the harbormaster, who held out the newspaper.

"Surely you knowea"...he said. "Your brother Hector

is the new president of Cuba."

Maximo took the paper, sank down into the only

empty chair, stared at the headlines.

"What a nightff"...sd the harbormaster, beaming like the

sun. "History in the making. Hector and El

Ocho, what a team!"

"Amazing."

"And look! The newspaper published a letter from your

sister-in-law, Mercedes. Forty years ago

Fidel hid the peso gold under the floor of the

presidential palace. It's still there, every ounce of

it. Sixty

tons of gold

the nation owns, eh! Isn't that amazing?"

The gray U.s. Navy ammo ship anchored in the

bay and put a launch into the water. The coxswain

brought the small boat around to a gangway. In a

few minutes the trill of a bosun's pipe could be

heard, then a series of bells over the ship's

loudspeaker.

A group of officers and sailors in white uniforms

came down the gangway and climbed aboard the

launch.

The town of Antilla, Cuba, lay baking in the

sun. The

waterfront was lined with fishing craft. The only

ships at the pier were two small coasters, about a

thousand tons each. The launch maneuvered against the

pier and Rear Admiral Jake Grafton stepped

ashore. Gil Pascal and Toad Tarkington

followed him onto the pier.

"That's the warehouse over thereea"...Toad said, and

pointed.

Jake just nodded. He waited as a knot of

Cubans came walking out on the pier toward him.

"Where"...ness the translator?"

"Right here, sirea"...sd an enlisted man, who

stepped forward beside Jake. He too was togged out in

his best white uniform.

After the usual diplomatic greetings, Jake,

Captain Pascal, and the translator went with the

Cubans toward the warehouse, leaving Toad alone

on the pier.

Tarkington strolled along, looking here and there, his

arms folded behind his back.

He was standing near the head of the pier when he heard a

noise. He stepped to the edge, leaned over.

A man in a black diving suit covered with muck

and slime was dragging his gear out from under the pier into the

sun.

"I was wondering where you guys wereea"...Toad said

conversationally.

"Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the

statueea"...the navy SEAL said. "Three days we've

been living under here like harbor rats, watching that

warehouse. We searched it the first night, Commanderthe

warheads were in there. And they're still there; the Cubans

haven't taken anything out."

"Where's your partner in crime?"

"Over on the other side of those coasters. He'll

be along in a bit. Think we could get a ride out

to the ship? I've been dreaming of a hot

shower, a hot meal, and a clean bunk."

"I think that can be arranged."...Toad reached down,

helped lift the diving gear onto the pier.

When the SEAL was standing on the pier beside him, dripping

onto the splintered boards, Toad said, "How'd you

like your Cuban vacation?"

"I want better accommodations for my next

visit."

As the president of the United States feared, the

aftermath of the second Cuban missile crisis, as

the press called it, was a political disaster in

Washington, with howls of outrage from the press and

demands from frightened senators and congressmen for

investigations and the resignations of everyone in the

executive branch.

The president watched General Tater Totten

retire from a distance, didn't go to the small

Pentagon ceremony, let the White House

spinmeisters whisper that Totten was somehow partially

responsible for the journey to the brink of the abyss.

Sensing that he couldn't win a whisper war, Totten

kept his mouth shut and departed with dignity.

Amid the impassioned breast-beating and public

denunciations, the director of the CIA decided that

he too had had enough of Washington. He had

a final conversation with the president in the Oval

Office after he submitted his resignation but before the

White House announced his departure.

"Sorry to see you goea"...the president muttered

politely, not meaning a word of it. The director

nodded knowingly.

"Don't know if this congressional investigation can be

derailed or notea"...the president said, not willing

to look the director in the eye. "A lot of what

happened will be classified forever, so I don't

really see what they stand to gain by stirring through the

ashes."

"They'll investigate anywayea"...the director

predicted gloomily. "That's what I want

to talk to you about. At one of those meetings during the

crisis you asked for the name of our top man in

Cuba, and I wrote it down for you. I don't know

if you ever looked at that name, but it would

be absolute disaster if that person's name were revealed

to a congressional investigator."

"After you wrote it down, I looked at the nameea"...the

president said, speaking slowly. "Not at the

meeting, but later. Didn't expect to recognize

it, but then was amazed that the last name was the same as the

priest who was thrown in prison."

"Mercedes Sedano was Castro's mistress and an

intelligence treasure. She told us of drug

deals, Vargas's blackmail files, Fidel's

secret bank accounts.... When she wanted the

tape made of Fidel naming Hector as his

successor, there wasn't time to go through the usual

drops and cutouts, so she went directly to the

American Interest Section of the Swiss

embassy. None of this must come out, Mr.

President. If the Cubans find out she was

whispering to us, Hector Sedano's government might

fall. And she might lose her life."

"That sheet of paper no longer existsea"...the

president said. "I suggest you destroy the

files."

A few minutes later as the director was preparing

to leave, the president said, "I have never understood

spies. Why did that woman betray her country?"

The director blinked like an owl. "I don't know

that she didea"...he replied, and walked out of the Oval

Office for the last time.

On a Wednesday morning in November Tommy

Carmellini parked his car in a large parking garage

in downtown Denver and got his backpack from the

trunk.

The weather was gorgeous, a sunny, mild day with

air so clear the peaks of the Rockies looked

close enough to touch. Autumn leaves lay packed in

gutters and windrows waiting for tomorrow's wind to blow them

around.

Carmellini walked two blocks to the Sixteenth

Street mall. While he was waiting for a free

shuttle bus he bought a copy of the

Denver Post

from a vending machine. Like so many of the young people, he was

dressed in tennis

shoes, faded jeans, and a threadbare pullover

sweater. An unzipped windbreaker was tied around his

waist. A backpack hung over one shoulder. The

shuttle bus stopped at the end of every block to let

people on and off. Hanging from a strap, Carmellini

kept his backpack pressed against the rear window of the

bus.

At the western end of the mall Carmellini let himself

be swept along with the flow of people into the regional bus

depot. He found a bus to Boulder, climbed

aboard, and dropped the fare into the change box, then

eased into a window seat five rows behind the driver.

He kept his backpack on his lap.

The bus filled quickly. In minutes the

driver closed the door and pulled out of the station.

Tommy Carmellini opened the newspaper and

examined the front page. All U.s. sanctions

against travel and commerce with Cuba were lifted, and the

U.s. was opening an embassy in Havana. There

was a photo of the president of the United States

shaking hands with Hector Sedano at a news

conference in Washington.

Tommy flipped through the paper. On page four he

found a short item reporting a Florida grand

jury indictment of El Gato, a Cuban exile

living in Miami, charging him with selling unnamed

equipment to the Cuban government in violation of the

laws existing at the time. According to the newspaper, El

Gato was the only person indicted.

Carmellini folded the paper and tucked it in the seat

pocket in front of him.

Cuba was long ago and far away. Of course he still

read the news and classified summaries, and heard

people talking about Cuba and the people he met there.

Microsoft and Intel were building big factories

in Havana, and Phillip Morris was buying one

of the oldest cigar companies for beaucoup bucks.

Rear Admiral Jake Grafton was now an

assistant to some bigwig in the Pentagon,

Commander Toad Tarkington went with him as an aide,

and Toad's wife, the newly promoted Commander

Rita Moravia, was the exec-

utive officer of a fighter squadron. Hector

Sedano was doing an enviable job running Cuba, and

some fighter pilot nobody ever heard of named

Carlos Corrado had been promoted to general and

put in charge of the Cuban Air Force.

.life goes on.

Most of the seats on the bus to Boulder were occupied.

The sun coming through the windows and the motion of the bus were very

pleasant, and many people dozed. The seat beside

Carmellini was empty, so he relaxed

las

grip on the backpack and closed his eyes.

He was awake when the bus crossed Davidson

Mesa into Boulder, roaring down the turnpike at

seventy-five. He marveled at the upthrust

granite slabs of the Flatirons which formed a

spectacular backdrop behind the town.

As the bus cruised by the university on its way

downtown, Tommy Carmellini walked to the door

by the driver and waited. He got off at the next

stop and stood looking at the red stone buildings of the

university as the bus accelerated away in

a cloud of diesel exhaust.

He had a map in his hip pocket, but he had

studied it so much he didn't need to refer to it today.

He strolled along, readily recognized the

student union, and went from there.

The buildings were built all of. a pattern, and with

throngs of students coming and going, seemed to proclaim

the glory of man's quest for knowledge in the bright

November sunshine.

Carmellini glanced at his watch a time or two,

then strolled along with his hands in his pockets. He

found the building he wanted, opened the door, and

went in. He took the stairs up to the top

floor.

The hallway was lined with doors, lots of doors.

He walked along, examining them. Each door

bore the name of a faculty member, and most had a

small card advertising the faculty member's

office hours taped to the frosted glass.

He found the one he wanted, checked the hours. He

was early, by ten minutes.

He knocked.

No answer.

Should he wait here in the hallway, or ... perhaps the

library? The hallway was empty, but

someone could come along at any moment.

Of course the professor might not come at all.

Carmellini recalled his own college days: a

student could spend weeks trying to waylay a tenured

associate professor in his office.

Well, if this didn't work he would try something

else. Just what, he didn't know.

He decided on the library. He turned and started

down the hall. He had taken three or disfour

steps when disthe door opened behind him and a man in his

sixties stuck his head out.

"Did you knock?". "Yes."

"Got a watch? Can you read? Office hours

don't start for ten minutes."

"Yes, but"

"Oh, come on in."

Carmellini carefully closed the door behind him. The

office was tiny, merely a cubbyhole with a desk and

computer for the professor and one extra chair.

Bookshelves filled with books lined both side

walls. A shelf under the window behind the professor

was piled willy-nilly with papers, manuscripts,

files. The glass in the window didn't look as

if it had been cleaned in years.

"If this is about your thesis, we're going

to need more time than I have available today, so"

"You're Professor Svenson, right?"

"That's right."...The professor had seated himself behind his

desk. He looked up into Carmellini's face and

adjusted his glasses. His features twisted into a

frown.

"Your face doesn't... You're ...?"

"Your name is Olaf Svenson?"

"What do you want?"

Tommy Carmellini unzipped the backpack,

pulled out

the pistol with the silencer. He thumbed off the

safety.

A look of terror crossed Svenson's face.

"The government has no evidenceea"...he said. "They

decided not to prosecute. They"

Tommy Carmellini shot Olaf Svenson in the

center of the forehead from a distance of four feet.

Svenson collapsed in his chair, his head tilted

back.

Carmellini stepped around the desk, put the muzzle

of the silencer against the side of the professor's head

and pulled the trigger twice more. Two little pops.

He bent down, retrieved the spent cartridges that

had been ejected from the pistol, pocketed

them, then safetied the weapon and returned it to his

backpack.

He had touched only the doorknob. He

extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the

interior knob carefully, then pulled the door

open. He pushed the little button to lock the door,

then stepped into the hallway and pulled it shut. One

hard twist of the cotton handkerchief on the outside

knob, then he was walking away down the hallway and

no one could ever prove he had been there.

Surrounded by young adults strolling, laughing, and

visiting with each other on the sun-dappled grass,

Tommy Carmellini walked across the campus with his

head down, the backpack over his shoulder, thinking of

Cuba.

Visiting the former British province, Admiral

Jake Grafton becomes embroiled in a

volatile conspiracy that will threaten the fate of a

nation, the security of the free world, and the future of his

own family . . .

HONG KONG

By Stephen Coonts

After a series of political murders shakes

Hong Kong's establishment to its core, paranoid

government forces shut down a faltering

bank. Subsequent riots trigger brutal

military crackdowns, leaving China's position in

the coveted province anything but certain.

When shadowy conspirators abduct his wife,

Admiral Grafton must throw himself headlong into the

swirling intrigue that has engulfed the city. Only

by allying with Tommy Carmellinithe CIA

super-sleuth from CUBA-AND with a clandestine army of

Chinese patriots, can Grafton fight to the

shores of totalitarianism's last bastion . . .

and hope to ever again see the woman he loves.

HONG KONG

The explosive new thriller from Stephen

Coonts. Look for it in hardcover this September

from St. Martin's Press.

HK3/00

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