Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

by Cuba (lit)

  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, an
d 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 th
e 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.