Cyclops

by Clive Cussler

  "Who do we have on our team who can meet him face to face?"

  Brogan grunted. "No one."

  "There must be somebody we can send in."

  "If Castro was in a communicative mood, I can think of at least ten people on our payroll who could get through the front gate. But not as things stand now."

  The President toyed with the cigar, fumbling for inspiration. "How many Cubans can you trust in Havana who work the docks and have maritime experience?"

  "I'd have to check."

  "Guess."

  "Off the top of my head, maybe fifteen or twenty."

  "All right," the President said. "Round them up. Have them get on board those ships somehow and find which one is carrying the bomb."

  "Someone who knows what he's doing will have to defuse it."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we learn where it's hidden."

  "A day and a half isn't much time," Brogan said glumly. "Better we concentrate on sorting out the mess afterward."

  "You'd better get the show moving. Keep me informed every two hours. Turn everyone you've got in the Cuban department loose on this thing."

  "What about warning Castro?"

  "My job. I'll handle it."

  "Good luck, Mr. President."

  "Same to you, Martin."

  The President hung up. His cigar had gone out. He refit it, then picked up the phone again and placed a call to Ira Hagen.

  <<64>>

  The guard was young, no more than sixteen, eager and dedicated to Fidel Castro and committed to revolutionary vigilance. He glowed with self-importance and official arrogance as he swaggered to the car window, rifle slung tightly over one shoulder, and demanded to see identification papers.

  "It had to happen," Pitt muttered under his breath.

  The guards at the first three checkpoints had lazily waved Figueroa through when he flashed his taxi driver's permit. They were campesinos who chose the routine of a military career over a dead-end life of working in the fields or factories. And like soldiers in every army of the world, they found sentry duty tedious, eventually losing all suspicions except when their superiors arrived for an inspection.

  Figueroa handed the youngster his permit.

  "This only covers the Havana city borders. What are you doing in the country?"

  "My brother-in-law died," Figueroa said patiently. "I went to his funeral."

  The guard bent down and looked through the driver's open window. "Who are these others?"

  "Are you blind?" Figueroa snapped. "They're military like you."

  "We have orders to be on the watch for a man wearing a stolen militia uniform. He is suspected of being an imperialist spy who landed on a beach one hundred miles east of here."

  "Because she is wearing a militia uniform," said Figueroa, pointing to Jessie in the backseat, "you think the Yankee imperialists are sending women to invade us?"

  "I want to see their identification papers," the guard persisted.

  Jessie rolled down the rear window and leaned out. "This is Major O'Hara of the Irish Republican Army, on assignment as an adviser. I'm Corporal Lopez, his aide. Enough of this nonsense. Pass us through."

  The guard kept his eyes on Pitt. "If he's a major, why isn't he showing his rank?"

  For the first time it occurred to Figueroa that there was no insignia on Pitt's uniform. He stared at Pitt, a doubtful frown spreading across his face.

  Pitt sat there without taking part in the exchange. Then he slowly turned and gazed into the guard's eyes and gave him a friendly smile. When he spoke his voice was soft, but it carried total authority.

  "Get this man's name and rank. I wish to have him commended for his attention to duty. General Raul Castro has often said Cuba needs men of this caliber."

  Jessie translated and watched with relief as the guard stood erect and smiled.

  Then Pitt's tone turned glacial, and so did his eyes. "Now tell him to stand clear or I'll arrange to have him sent as a volunteer to Afghanistan."

  The young guard seemed to shrink perceptibly as Jessie repeated Pitt's words in Spanish. He stood lost, undecided what to do as a long black car pulled up and stopped behind the old cab. Pitt recognized it as a Zil, a seven-seater luxury limousine built in Russia for high-ranking government and military officials.

  The Zil's driver honked his horn impatiently, and the guard seemed frozen with indecision. He turned and stared pleadingly at another guard, but his partner was occupied with traffic traveling in the other direction. The limousine's driver honked again and shouted out his side window.

  "Move that car aside and let us pass!"

  Then Figueroa got into the act and began yelling at the Russians. "Stupid Russo, shut up and take a bath! I can smell you from here!"

  The Soviet driver pushed open his door, leaped from behind the wheel, and shoved the guard aside.

  He was built like a bowling pin, huge, beefy body and small head. His rank indicated that he was a sergeant. He stared at Figueroa through eyes burning with malice.

  "Idiot," he snarled. "Move this wreck."

  Figueroa shook his fist in the Russian's face. "I'll go when my countryman tells me to."

  "Please, please," Jessie pleaded, shaking Figueroa's shoulder "We don't want any trouble."

  "Discretion isn't a Cuban virtue," Pitt murmured. He cradled the assault rifle in his arms with the muzzle pointed at the Russian and eased the door open.

  Jessie turned and peered cautiously through the rear window at the limousine, just in time to see a Soviet officer, followed by two armed bodyguards, climb from the backseat and gaze with an amused smile at the shouting match taking place beside the taxicab. Jessie's mouth dropped open and she gasped.

  General Velikov, looking tired and haggard, and wearing a badly fitted borrowed uniform, approached from the rear of the Chevrolet as Pitt slid out of his seat and stepped around the front end before Jessie could warn him.

  Velikov's attention was focused on his driver and Figueroa, and he paid scant notice to what appeared to be another Cuban soldier emerging from the other side of the car. The argument was heating up as he came alongside.

  "What is the problem?" he asked in fluent Spanish.

  His answer did not come from his driver, but from a totally unexpected source.

  "Nothing we can't settle like gentlemen," Pitt said acidly in English.

  Velikov stared at Pitt for a long moment, the amused smile dying on his lips, his face as expressionless as ever. The only sign of astonished recognition was a sudden hardness of the flat cold eyes.

  "We are survivors, are we not, Mr. Pitt?" he replied.

  "Lucky. I'd say we were lucky," Pitt answered in a steady voice.

  "I congratulate you on your escape from the island. How did you manage it?"

  "A makeshift boat. And you?"

  "A helicopter concealed near the installation. Fortunately, your friends failed to discover it."

  "An oversight."

  Velikov glanced out of the corner of his eye, noting with irritation the relaxed stance of his bodyguards.

  "Why have you come to Cuba?"

  Pitt's hand tightened around the rifle's grip, muzzle pointing in the sky just above Velikov's head, finger poised on the trigger. "Why bother to ask when you've established the fact I'm a habitual liar?"

  "I also know you only lie if there is a purpose. You didn't come to Cuba to drink rum and lie in the sun."

  "What now, General?"

  "Look around you, Mr. Pitt. You're hardly in a position of strength. The Cubans do not take kindly to spies. You would be wise to lay down your gun and place yourself under my protection."

  "No, thank you. I've been under your protection. His name was Foss Gly. You remember him. He got high by pounding his fists on flesh. I'm happy to report he's no longer in the pain business. One of his victims shot him where it hurts most."

  "My men can kill you where you stand."

  "It's obvious they don't understand English and haven't
got any idea of what's being said between us.

  Don't try to alert them. This is what's known as a Mexican standoff. You so much as pick your nose and I'll put a bullet up the opposite nostril."

  Pitt glanced around him. Both the Cuban checkpoint guard and the Soviet driver were listening dumbly to the English conversation. Jessie was crouched down in the backseat of the Chevy, only the top of the fatigue cap showing above the side window. Velikov's guards stood lax, their eyes and minds turning to the landscape, automatic pistols snapped securely in their holsters.

  "Get in the car, General. You'll be riding with us."

  Velikov stared coldly at Pitt. "And if I refuse?"

  Pitt stared back with grim conviction. "You die first. Then your bodyguards. After them, the Cuban sentries. I'm prepared to kill. They're not. Now, if you please. . ."

  The Soviet bodyguards stood rooted and looked on in rapt amazement as Velikov silently followed Pitt's gesture and entered the front passenger's seat. He turned briefly and gazed curiously at Jessie.

  "Mrs. LeBaron?"

  "Yes, General."

  "You're with this madman?" I am.'

  "But why?"

  Figueroa opened his mouth to interrupt, but Pitt roughly shouldered the Soviet driver aside, firmly gripped the friendly Cuban's arm, and pulled him from the car.

  "This is as far as you go, amigo. Tell the authorities we abducted you and hijacked your taxi." Then he passed his rifle to Jessie through the open window and angled his long frame behind the wheel. "If the general so much as twitches, shoot him through the head."

  Jessie nodded and placed the gun barrel against the base of Velikov's skull.

  Pitt shifted the Chevy into first gear and accelerated smoothly as if he was on a Sunday drive, watching the figures at the checkpoint through the rearview mirror. He was gratified to see that they milled around in confusion, not sure of what to do. Then Velikov's driver and bodyguards finally woke up to what was happening, ran to the black limousine, and took up the chase.

  Pitt skidded to a stop and took the gun from Jessie. He fired several shots at a pair of telephone wires where they ran through insulators at the top of a pole. The car was burning rubber on the asphalt before the parted ends of the wire dropped to the ground.

  "That should buy us half an hour," he said.

  "The limousine is only a hundred yards behind and gaining." Jessie's voice was high-pitched and apprehensive.

  "You'll never shake them" said Velikov calmly. "My driver is an expert at high speeds, and the car is powered by a seven-liter 425-horsepower engine."

  For all of Pitt's offhandedness and casual speech there was an icy competence and an unmistakable air about him of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.

  He offered Velikov a reckless smile and said, "The Russians haven't built a car that can take a

  'fifty-seven Chevy."

  As if to hammer home the point he mashed the gas pedal to the floor and the tired old car seemed to reach into the depths of her worn parts for a burst of power she hadn't known in thirty years. The big roaring lump of iron could still go. She gathered speed and ate up the highway, the steady roar of her squat V-8 meant business.

  Pitt's entire mind was concentrated on his driving and on studying the road two, even three turns ahead. The Zil clung tenaciously to the smokescreen that poured from the Chevy's tailpipe. He threw the car around a series of hairpin turns as they climbed through forested hills. He was skirting the fine edge of disaster. The brakes were awful and did little but smell and smoke when Pitt stood on them. Their lining was gone and metal ground against metal inside the drums.

  At ninety miles an hour a front-wheel wobble set in with eyeball-rattling proportions. The steering wheel shuddered in Pitt's hands. The shock absorbers were long gone and the Chevy sponged around the bends, leaning precariously, tires screeching like wild turkeys.

  Velikov sat stiff as wood, his eyes trained straight ahead, one hand gripping the door handle with white knuckles as if ready to eject before the inevitable crash.

  Jessie was frankly terrified, closing her eyes as the car drifted and swayed wildly along the road. She braced her knees on the back of the front seat to keep from being thrown from side to side and steadied the rifle aimed at Velikov's lower hairline.

  If Pitt was aware of the considerable anguish he was causing his passengers, he gave no sign of it. A half-hour head start was the most he could hope for before the Cuban sentries made contact with their superiors and reported the kidnapping of the Soviet general. A helicopter would be the first sign the Cuban military was closing in and preparing a trap. When and how far ahead they would set up a roadblock was a matter of pure conjecture. A tank or a small fleet of armored cars suddenly appearing around a hidden curve and the ride would be over. Only Velikov's presence forestalled a massacre.

  The driver of the Zil was no lightweight. He gained on Pitt in the turns, but dropped back in the straights as the burning acceleration of the old Chevy took hold. Out of the corner of one eye Pitt caught a small sign indicating they were approaching the port city of Cardenas. Houses and small roadside businesses began to hug the highway and the traffic increased.

  He glanced at the speedometer. The wavering needle hovered around 85. He backed off until it dropped to 70, keeping the Zil at bay as he weaved in and out of the traffic, one hand heavy on the horn.

  A policeman made a futile attempt to wave him to the curb as he careened around the Plaza Colon and a high bronze statue of Columbus. Luckily the streets were broad and he had little trouble staying clear of pedestrians and other vehicles.

  The city lay just inland of a shallow, circular bay, and as long as he kept the sea on his right he figured he was still heading toward Havana. Somehow he managed to stay on the main road, and less than ten minutes later the car was flying from the major portion of the city and entering the countryside again.

  During the high-speed run through the streets the Zil had closed to within fifty yards. One of the bodyguards leaned out the window and fired his pistol.

  "They're shooting at us," Jessie announced in the tone of someone who was emotionally washed out.

  "He's not aiming at us," Pitt replied. "They're trying for our tires."

  "You're as good as caught," said Velikov. Those were the first words he had uttered in fifty miles.

  "Give it up. You can't get away."

  "I'll quit when I'm dead." Pitt's cool composure was staggering.

  It was not the answer Velikov was expecting. If all Americans were like Pitt, he thought, the Soviet Union was in for a rough time. Velikov prided himself on his skills in manipulating men, but this was clearly one man he would never dent.

  They soared over a dip in the road and landed heavily on the other side. The muffler was torn away and the sudden thunder of exhaust was startling, almost shattering in its unexpected fury of sound. Their eyes began to water from the fumes, and the interior of the car became a steam bath under the combined onslaught of the heat from the engine and humid climate outside. The floorboards were almost hot enough to melt the soles of Pitt's boots. Between the noise and the heat, he felt as though he were working overtime in a boiler room.

  The Chevy was becoming a mechanical bedlam. The teeth on the transmission were ground down to their nubs, and they howled in protest at the high revolutions. Strange knocking sounds began to emanate from the engine's bowels. But she was still vicious, and with that old deep-throated Chevy sound, she barreled along almost as if she knew this would be her last ride.

  Pitt had carefully slowed ever so slightly and allowed the Russian driver to pull up within three car lengths. Pitt swung the Chevy back and forth across the road to throw off the bodyguard's aim. He eased his, foot off the accelerator a hair until the Zil had come within twenty feet of the Chevy's rear bumper.

  Then Pitt stood on the brakes.

  The sergeant driving the Zil was good, but he wasn't that good. He snapped the steering wheel to the left and almost sw
ung clear. But there was no time and even less distance. The Zil crashed into the rear of the Chevy with a scream of steel and an eruption of glass, crushing the radiator against the engine as the tail end whipped around in a corkscrew motion.

  The Zil, madly out of control, and now nothing but three tons of metal bent on its own destruction, sideswiped a tree and caromed across the road to smash into an empty, broken-down bus at a speed of eighty miles an hour. Orange flame burst from the car as it flipped crazily end over end for over a hundred yards before coming to rest on its roof, all four tires still spinning. The Russians were trapped inside and had no hope of escape as the orange flames transformed into a thick cloud of black smoke.

  The faithful, battered Chevy was still running on little but mechanical guts. Steam and oil were streaming from under the hood, second gear was gone along with the brakes, and the twisted rear bumper was dragging on the road, throwing out a spray of sparks.

  The plume of smoke would draw the searchers. The net was closing. The next mile, the next curve in the highway, might reveal a roadblock. Pitt was sure a helicopter would appear any minute over the treetops bordering the road. Now was the time to ditch the car. It was senseless to play on his luck any longer. Like a bandit running from a posse, the time had come to trade horses.

  He slowed down to fifty as he approached the outskirts of the city of Matanzas. He spotted a fertilizer plant and turned into the parking lot. Stopping the dying Chevy under a large tree, he looked around, and not seeing anyone, killed the engine. The crackling of burning metal and hissing steam replaced the ear-blasting drone of the exhaust.

  "What's your next scheme?" asked Jessie. She was coming back on balance now. "You do have another scheme up your sleeve, I hope."

  "The Artful Dodger has nothing on me," said Pitt with a reassuring grin. "Sit tight. If our friend the general hiccups, kill him."

  He walked through the parking lot. It was a weekday and it was filled with the workers' cars. The stench from the plant had a sickening smell about it that filled the air for miles. He stood near the main gate as a stream of trucks loaded with ammonium sulphate, potassium chloride, and animal manure rumbled into the plant and trucks carrying the processed fertilizer in paper bags drove out. He had an idea and strolled casually down the dirt road that led to the highway. He waited for about fifteen minutes until a Russian-built truck filled with raw manure turned in and headed for the plant. He stood in the middle of the road and waved it to a stop.