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Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

Page 15

by Cuba (lit)

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 s
atisfy 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

 

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