by Cuba (lit)
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 matt
er, 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
