Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

by Cuba (lit)

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 cance
r 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

&n
bsp; 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