Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

by Cuba (lit)

  erected after the revolution.

  So were the statues in the Plaza de Revolucion.

  And some of the statues in Old Havana, at the

  Museo de Arte Colonial, at the Catedral

  de San Cristobal de la Havana, on some

  of the minor squares.

  After

  the revolution! After the government collected all the

  gold pesos, or before?

  The Museum of the Revolution! The old

  presidential palace was converted to a propaganda

  temple that would prove to all generations the

  venality of Batista, the dictator Fidel had

  overthrown. Maximo recalled reading somewhere that

  Fidel had personally supervised the renovation and

  conversion of the old building.

  Thirty-seven tons of gold. Fidel had

  squirreled it away somewhere.

  What he needed to do was go to the Museum of the

  Revolution, lock himself in a room with the collection

  of Havana newspapers. After the revolution, after

  the gold was collected, what was Fidel doing?

  Thirty-seven tons of gold.

  "One sample vial from the Cuban lab contained a

  new, super-infectious strain of poliomyelitis.

  The viruses are so hot they kill in seconds."

  The members of the National Security Council

  didn't say anything.

  "The scientists said they never saw anything like itea"...the

  national security adviser continued. "The four

  sample vials contained three different strains of the

  polio virus. Two of the vials contained the same

  type of virus."

  "Is the vaccination we were all given as children

  effective against these strains"..."...The chairman of the

  joint chiefs asked this question.

  "Apparently jiot. The scientists will

  need more time to verify that, but apparently ... no."

  The president looked glum. "Talk about a

  choice. We can wait until the Cubans use that

  stuff on us or we can bomb the lab right now."

  "No, sirea"...the chairman said. 'There is no

  guarantee a bomb would kill that virus. Bombing

  the lab would "probably just release the viruses to the

  atmosphere and kill everyone in Cuba who happened

  to be downwind."

  The silence that followed that remark was broken by the

  secretary of state, who asked, "Do the scientists

  have an estimate on how long those viruses can live

  outside the lab?"

  "Not yetea"...the national security adviser replied.

  He took a deep breath and referred back to his

  notes. "Here is the situation in Cuba as we

  believe it to be: We received a report two hours

  ago from our man in Havana who says he was told

  earlier today that Fidel Castro is dead. He is

  sending some videotapes in the diplomatic pouch."

  "Dead, huh"..."...sd the president. "I'll believe

  it when they put his corpse on display in a tomb

  on the Plaza de Revolucion."

  Someone tittered.

  The national security adviser continued

  to read from his notes. "Review of the documents from the

  safe of the secret police chief, Alejo

  Vargas, indicates that the Cubans have installed

  biological warheads on intermediate-range

  ballistic missiles."

  "What?"

  the president demanded. He pounded on the table with the

  flat of his hand to silence everyone else. In the

  silence that followed, he roared, "Where in hell did

  those people get ballistic missiles?"

  The national security adviser looked like he was in

  severe pain. "From the Russians, sir. In

  1962. Apparently the

  STEPHEN COONTS

  Russians left some behind after the Cuban missile

  crisis. You may recall that Castro refused

  to let the UN inspection team into the country to verify

  that all the missiles had been removed."

  "How good is this information?""...The man who sent it is

  absolutely reliable."...The president mouthed a

  profane oath, which the chairman of the joint chiefs

  thought a succinct summation of the whole situation.

  In a country as poor as Cuba safe houses were

  hard to come by. The one that William

  Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini found themselves in

  was an abandoned monastery on a promontory of land

  on the south coast of the island. Surrounded by tidal

  flats and dense vegetation, the sprawling one-story

  building was an occasional refuge for drug

  smugglers and young lovers, who had left their trash

  strewn about. The rotten thatched roof remained

  intact over just one room, the kitchen. A roaring

  fire burned in the fireplace, which apparently the

  monks had used primarily for cooking.

  From the window three fishing boats were visible,

  wooden boats with a single mast, manned by one or

  two men. The crew of two of the boats were rigging

  trot lines, the other was hauling in a net. Chance

  examined each through binoculars. They looked harmless

  enoughhe doubted if any of the boats had an engine

  or radio.

  "What do you think"..."...Carmellini asked.

  "We have a little time, but I don't know how much."

  "Guess it depends on how efficient the

  secret police and the military are."

  "Ummea"...Chance grunted, and after one more sweep of

  everything in sight, put down the binoculars.

  Tommy Carmellini sat feeding sheets of paper

  from the secret police files into the fire

  as fast as they would burn. He merely scanned the

  pages as he ripped them from the files and tossed them

  into the flames.

  "Vargas and bis guys were certainly

  thoroughea"...Car-

  mellini commented. "They looked under every rock."

  "And found every slimy thing that walks or

  crawlsea"...Chance agreed. Vargas's laptop was

  on, so Chance resumed his examination of the files.

  "Sort of like J. Edgar Hoover."

  "Secret police are pretty much alike the world

  overea"...Chance muttered. He moved the cursor to the

  next file on the list and called it up.

  "How many missiles are there on this

  island"..."...Carmellini asked as he tore paper.

  "I have found six missile files, so far. There

  may be moreI see some references to material that

  doesn't seem to be on this computer."

  "Six? With locations?"

  "Names only. Every missile has a name: Miami,

  Atlanta, Jacksonville, Charleston, New

  Orleans, and Tampa."

  "What about Mobile?"'

  - "Don't see it on here."

  "Birmingham, Orlando, the army bases in

  Alabama?"

  "Nothing."

  "I find it hard to believe that in the decades since

  1962, the Cubans have managed to keep the secret

  of their ballistic missiles."

  Chance didn't reply. He had never agreed with the

  agency's spending priorities, which were heavily

  slanted toward reconnaissance satellites. The

  people in Washington were sold on high-tech computer and

  sensor networks for the collection of intelligen
ce.

  Hardware and software didn't turn traitor and were

  easy to justify to the bean counters. The spymasters

  seemed to have lost sight of a basic truth: networks

  could only collect the information their sensors' were

  designed to obtain. And they could be fooled. If

  garbage goes in, garbage comes out.

  Ah, well. The world keeps turning.

  "How long is that going to take"..."...Chance asked,

  referring to the files and the fire.

  "Couple hours at this rate."

  Chance glanced at his watch. A few minutes after

  one o'clock in the afternoon. The rendezvous with the submarine was

  set for ten o'clock tonight, almost nine hours away. "If

  we have to run for it, we'll take everything

  we haven't burned."

  He and Carmellini and die four U.s. Navy

  SEAL'S on guard in the grasses and bushes out

  front would try to escape if the Cubans

  attacked the place. Two speedboats were fueled

  and ready inside die old boathouse, and a

  submarine would meet diem fifty miles south.

  Unfortunately he had no way of knowing if die

  submarine was already lying submerged at die

  rendezvous position or if the skipper planned

  to arrive punctually. If he was already there, Chance,

  Carmellini, and die SEAL'S could leave now. If

  die sub wasn't at die rendezvous, die two

  boats would have to spend die afternoon and evening rolling hi

  die swell, hoping and praying die Cuban Navy

  didn't come over die horizon.

  We'll wait,

  Chance decided, glancing at his watch again, though

  Lord knows die waiting was difficult.

  It would be a serious mistake to underestimate

  Alejo Vargas. The Cuban secret police

  had over forty years of practice finding and arresting

  people who sneaked onto die islandone had to assume they

  were reasonably good at it.

  Chance didn't want to get into a

  firefight with die Cuban military or secret

  police. Leaving a body behind would be bad, and leaving

  a live person to be captured and tortured would be

  absolute disaster.

  If die Cubans came riding over die

  hill, Chance and his entourage were leaving as quickly as

  possible. They could take their chances on die open

  sea. That decision made, Chance turned his attention

  back to die computer screen hi front of him.

  Two months ago when he and Carmellini were handed

  this mission, William Henry Chance would not have bet

  a plugged nickel they could pull it off. Polish

  die Spanish hi

  over a hundred hours of classes, be in the right

  place at the right time when the power went off, break

  into Alejo Vargas's safe in secret-police

  headquarters, carry out the files that Vargas had

  spent twenty years accumulating, the files he could

  trade for political support after Castro's

  death.

  Amazingly, they had pulled it off. Every file that

  went into the flames was one Vargas would never use.

  Chance glanced at Carmellini, who was using a stick

  to stir the fire, keep the paper burning.

  Yep, they had pulled it off. And stumbled

  upon a biological weapons program and

  Fidel's collection of old Soviet ballistic

  missiles.

  Six missiles. No locations.

  The locations must be well camouflaged or the

  satellite reconnaissance people would have seen them long

  ago. On the other hand, if they knew what they were

  looking for...

  Chance went to the door, called softly to the SEAL

  lieutenant. dis"...Mr. Fitzgerald, would you set

  up die satellite telephone again?"

  "Of course. Take about five minutes."

  "Thank you."

  While the lieutenant was getting the set turned on

  and acquiring the corn satellite, Chance continued

  to check the computer. When he hit a file labeled

  "Trajectories"...he sensed he was onto something

  important.

  The file was a series of mathematical

  calculations, complex formulas. Hmmm...

  Let's see, if one could figure out where the

  warheads were aimed, then one could use the known

  trajectory to work back to the launch site. That's

  right, isn't it?

  "Mr. Chance, they're on."...The

  lieutenant handed him the satellite phone.

  In Washington, D.c., the director of the CIA

  and the national security adviser listened without comment as

  the voice of the agent in Cuba came over the speaker

  phone. He gave them the news as quickly and

  succinctly as he

  could. They had the secret-police files, were

  burning them now though the task would take several more

  hours, they had a computer containing a file of what

  appeared to be missile-trajectory calculations,

  and there were at least six ballistic missiles in

  Cuba, maybe more. Chance gave the men in

  Washington the names of the missiles.

  "Well doneea"...the director said, high praise from

  that taciturn public servant.

  When the connection was broken, the national security

  adviser and the CIA director sat silently,

  lost in thought. The spymaster was thinking about Alejo

  Vargas and the possibility he might seize control

  of the government in Cuba upon the death of Castro. The

  other man was thinking about ballistic missiles and

  microscopic viruses of poliomyelitis.

  "Another Cuban missile crisisea"...muttered the

  adviser disgustedly.

  The CIA director grinned. "Why

  don't you look at the silver lining of this cloud for a

  change? Fate has just presented us with a rare

  opportunity to clean out a local cesspool. We

  ought to be down on our knees giving thanks."

  The adviser didn't see it that way. He knew the

  president regarded the upcoming death of Castro as

  a political opportunity, a chance to change the

  relationship between Cuba and the United States and

  escape the bitter past. Perhaps the president would

  decide to just ignore the weapons, pretend they

  didn't exist. Then he could hold out the olive

  branch to the Cubans, get what he wanted from them,

  get credit for progressive leadership from the

  American electorate, and negotiate about the

  weapons later.

  Tommy Carmellini was burning the last of the files

  when William Henry Chance noticed that two of the

  fishing boats were no longer in sight. "When did they

  leave"..."...he asked the naval officer, Lieutenant

  Fitzgerald.

  "Several hours ago, sir. I noticed one of them

  going west

  under sail then, but I confess I haven't been

  paying much attention to the others."

  Carmellini checked his watch5:30

  P.m. Still three or four hours of daylight

  left.

  "Anything stirring out here"..."...Chance asked.

  "No, sir. Pretty quiet. An old man and a

  girl walked along the road toward the monastery about

  three P.m., then
turned and went back the way

  they had come."

  "Did they see your men?"

  "No, sir." -

  "Well..."...In truth, Chance was nervous. He

  felt trapped, completely at the mercy of forces

  beyond his control. He took a deep breath, tried

  to relax as Carmellini stirred the ashes of the fire

  to ensure that all the paper he had thrown in was totally

  consumed.

  "Would you like some MRE'S, sir"..."...the navy officer

  asked. "My men and I are getting hungry."

  Surprised at himself for not noticing his hunger

  sooner, Chance said, "Why not"..."...He hadn't had a

  bite since last night.

  They were munching at the rations when a helicopter

  came roaring down the coast from the west. The craft was

  doing about eighty knots, Chance guessed, when it

  went Over the old monastery. It continued west for a

  half mile or so, then laid into a turn.

  "Shitea"...sd Tommy Carmellini.

  "Lieutenant, I think he's onto usea"...Chance

  told the SEAL officer.

  "If he is, his friends can't be far awayea"...the SEAL

  said. Standing in the center of the room so he was hidden in

  shadow, he used the binoculars to look at the

  chopper.

  "Two men, one looking at us with binoculars."

  "Maybe it's time we set sailea"...Chance said as he

  folded the laptop and zipped it into its soft carrying

  bag. Then he put the whole thing in a waterproof

  plastic bag, which he carefully sealed.

  "Stay down, stay clear of the windowsea"...the

  lieutenant

  said, and darted out the door away from the chopper.

  Chance and Carmellini sat on the floor with their

  backs to the window. The chopper noise came closer

  and closer, then seemed to stop. It sounded as if the

  craft were hovering about a hundred feet to the east of the

  crumbling building. The rotor wash was stirring the

  remnants of the roof thatch that Chance could see.

  Then he heard the sharp crack of a rifle. Two

  more reports in quick succession. The tone of the

  chopper's engine changed, then he heard the sound of the

  crash.

  He risked a peek out the window. The wreckage

  of the helicopter lay on the rocks by the water's

  edge. Amazingly, one of the rotor blades was still

  attached to the head and turning slowly. A wisp of

  smoke rose from the twisted metal and Plexiglas.

  Chance could see the bodies of the two men slumped

  motionless in what remained of the cockpit. As he

  watched the wreckage broke into flames.

  "Sorry about thatea"...the lieutenant said as he burst