October's Ghost

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  “Yes.”

  Raul unfolded the paper he had jotted his notes on. “There are several target options, Fidel. Of course, there is the obvious one of Washington, but I believe others should be considered.”

  The president’s eyes looked upward as he leaned back. “The guilty parties must pay. Those responsible for destroying the Revolution must feel its wrath.”

  “They will. There is no doubt.” Raul took a chair and pulled it next to his brother, sitting and leaning close to him. “But there are options other than the American capital.” He put on the glasses he hated so much and looked to his notes. “A very good target would be New York. The destruction of that city would disrupt the financial dealings of the yanquis for years. Their vaunted stock exchange would be leveled. The headquarters of many of their largest corporations are located there. It would be a crushing blow.”

  Raul went to the next on his list of three. “There is also Los Angeles, on America’s West Coast. While not as financially important to the capitalists as New York, it is a heavily used transportation center vital to communications and distribution of manufactured goods. It is also the dominant port of trade with the East. And its population is highly vulnerable. Also, with the warhead being fused for a surface burst, the radioactive fallout will be carried by the prevailing winds eastward over the heartland of the country. There could potentially be millions more deaths over several decades from that effect alone.”

  Fidel took in a slow, deep breath and continued to give his brother the time to plead his case. There was no reason not to. That which had to be done would come to pass.

  “Finally, Miami. We have many enemies there, and some of the insurgents are likely from that population. It is also an important center for commerce in the southern United States.” Raul could see that his brother seemed disinterested in his propositions, especially the final one.

  “Fidel, you must choose a target. General Asunción needs to program the guidance system.”

  “Yes.” A smile came to his face. “They must be punished.”

  “The target, Fidel.”

  “I have chosen it.”

  Raul suspected correctly that his presentation had been for naught. The president’s mind had been made up for some time, he realized, knowing that the seat of power of a mighty nation was going to be targeted.

  His musing was only half-right.

  * * *

  Gonzales said nothing after hearing the NSA’s explanation of the situation to him. His family had fled Cuba when Castro seized power more than three decades before, and he had thought when the rebellion began how much his late father would have loved to set foot in the land of his birth just once more. And now that bastard in Havana was planning to kill potentially millions because he didn’t accept the handwriting on the wall.

  “I’m glad I filled you in before Greg got here,” the NSA admitted. The DDI had been delayed waiting for imagery of the area where the missile had been found. There was also a possible complication, he had told Bud, but did not want to discuss it on the phone. Even a secure one. Drummond didn’t wave red flags for no reason, leaving Bud wondering what could possibly complicate the situation any more than it already was.

  “Holy cow,” Gonzales commented mildly, though his eyes hinted at the language he truly wanted to use.

  “You can see why we’ve got to keep this airtight. Jack doesn’t get this, okay? That way he’s not lying when he is sweetly noncommittal.”

  Gonzales nodded. “Do you know what this is?”

  “What? A repeat of ‘62?” Bud had seen the eerie parallel early on. “Let’s hope we’re better at keeping it under wraps than they were.”

  A few heavy footsteps through the connecting office of the deputy NSA signaled the DDI’s arrival.

  “Sorry it took so... Ellis.” Drummond laid the security case on the coffee table.

  “He’s in, Greg,” Bud said, going on with his own complication. “We may have a press problem.”

  The DDI sat down on the couch and began removing the pictures he’d brought over from the case. “We may have a bigger one than that. Look.”

  Bud sat next to the DDI on the two-person couch, with Gonzales standing to the side.

  “Good shots,” Bud commented. He could tell they were from Aurora’s SAR, but Gonzales wasn’t cleared for that knowledge. To him they would just be amazing overhead imagery.

  “NPIC processed them F-A-S-T. This is straight from the analysts who did the workup.” He handed a synopsis of their findings to the NSA.

  “What... A CSS-Four?”

  “Or a CZ-Three space-launch booster,” Drummond said. “Though that’s a matter of semantics. They’re identical in all respects except for what goes on top.” He pointed to the best image that showed the weapon’s huge diameter. “Fidel is proving to be adept at these secret ‘arrangements.’ First Vishkov, and then this.”

  “The Chinese supplied him with this!” Bud’s neck reddened by the second. “That space-facility thing was just a sham, then?”

  “It’s looking that way. If it ever came out that this booster was there, he could try and explain it away as just part of the process to build the facility. A mockup or whatever. And to be truthful, without knowing that he had something to put on top, it would have looked like just part of his loony schemes.”

  Gonzales saw that it was much bigger than the missile described by Bud a few minutes earlier. “How did we miss this?”

  It was the question the Agency—“we” invariably was translatable to “you”—forever found itself answering when things didn’t go as those in higher places expected they should. “The Chinese were in Cuba working on the space facility in the first months of ‘91, which were pretty busy for us, you know. If it came in, it was probably then. And remember, this was one missile which we knew nothing about. The Navy lost a whole freighterful going from North Korea to Iran not long back, and they knew what they were looking for. The Agency is not the all-knowing, all-seeing power that a lot of folks think it is.”

  “I’m not blaming, Greg,” Gonzales explained. “It’s just hard to fathom that Castro would go to such lengths.”

  That struck Bud. Why would he? He read over the report again, picking out the details on the CSS-4’s performance, particularly the estimated-range data. “This thing has a seven-thousand-five-hundred-mile range.”

  That was an academic statement to the DDI. “Yes. So?”

  “Ellis has a point,” Bud said. “Why would Castro go to the lengths he has to give himself a delivery system that is overkill? There were other missile boosters out there that he could get a hold of that would be easier to hide and to base. The Chinese sold some CSS-Ones to Saudi Arabia awhile back. That would have had plenty of range to reach any target in the lower forty-eight, and it’s quite a bit smaller. Or those SS-Fours the Russians were ‘destroying’ after INF.” The Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty between the United States and the former USSR required the destruction of all surface missile systems with range envelopes of three hundred to three thousand miles. “We know that some of those made their way to Iran. Why not Cuba? Wouldn’t that have made for an easy match? Old warhead to newer booster of the same type.”

  Drummond’s mental process put on the brakes. “Wait, what are we assuming? That the original booster never worked, or that it stopped being functional at some point?”

  “Or that Castro decided it wasn’t what he wanted anymore,” Bud suggested ominously, more so in his own mind. The scenario was beginning to take shape.

  “I don’t follow you,” Drummond said.

  Bud walked to the globe that sat in the far corner of his office. It was no more than a showpiece—something he thought looked nice. He spun it almost half a world past the United States. “Oh, my God.”

  The exclamation was spoken softly, as if a prayer.

  “What is it, Bud?” Ellis asked.

  The NSA still faced away from the men. “Greg, you’re versed in Castro’s w
ays from the missile crisis.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who did he blame for it all collapsing?” A hand rested softly on the globe’s surface.

  “The Russians. Why?”

  Bud’s hand lifted a bit, leaving just one finger to trace on the uneven surface west from the Urals. “The speech he gave at the fifth party congress last year—do you remember the text?”

  “Sure,” the DDI said. He had read the translation of the five-hour speech in full in preparation for a roundtable discussion hosted by GW University. “He went on for hours haranguing all the ‘enemies of the Revolution.’ “

  “Were we among those?”

  “Right near the top.” Drummond’s mind seized on one of his words.

  “Near? Who was at the top, Greg? Who did Castro say had committed the greatest crimes against the Revolution?” Bud’s finger straightened and pointed down upon a single city.

  “Oh, no,” the DDI said, looking at the still-unaware chief of staff. “It can’t be.”

  Bud turned back. “The extra range isn’t overkill; it’s necessary.”

  “For what?” Ellis nearly demanded.

  “To reach his target,” Drummond said in a shaky voice.

  “What target?” The COS saw both men go a shade lighter before the answer came.

  * * *

  “Fidel. The target?”

  They had done worse than attack the Revolution, Fidel Castro thought—they had forsaken it. That transgression must be avenged. It must.

  “Moscow.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PLANS AND ACTION

  Art looked at the small card just handed him. One look was all it took. “Dan, this is beautiful.”

  “Thank the computers and Luke Kessler,” Dan Jacobs said. “He got the information we needed from the Florida DMV muy pronto.”

  Frankie took the card. Without a real Florida driver’s license to compare it to, this one could pass for legit. It might have to, she knew. “It’d be just our luck that one of the desk clerks is from Florida.”

  “All right,” Art said, motioning for the agents to move closer. “We are going to do this right, so listen carefully. Omar and I will each be directing the two search teams. Frankie and Shelley will be doing the actual casting of our bait.”

  “Using their feminine ways,” the same agent as before cracked.

  “I’ll ‘feminine way’ your family jewels,” Shelley Murdock shot back, getting a better response than her verbal nemesis.

  “Enough locker-room crap,” Art said, getting them back on track. “Frankie and Shelley will each have one of these.” He held up the counterfeit Florida license produced by the lab. It was a real representation of one of the licenses of their shooters shown on the photocopy from the rental agency. Dan Jacobs had taken the color composite photo put together from Mrs. Carroll’s description, cleaned it up using their suspect’s picture from the copy, then shrunk the image on the computer and added it to a close approximation of a Florida driver’s license. It was an FBI-produced forgery to rival the forgeries the shooters had been using. It was also the bait. “Six of us on each team besides them. Their job is to go to the desk clerk at each of the motels on our list and play like they’re delivering a lost wallet to the guy on the license. They’ll say they work at some store and that Mr. Flavio Alicante—aka whoever—called and asked if a lost wallet was found. They were supposed to hand-deliver it to him at such and such motel but didn’t give a room number. If the clerk recognizes the name and face and gives a room number, then we’ve got ‘em. If not, we move on.”

  “How do we know they used the same names to check in under?” an agent asked.

  “We don’t, but either way we should be okay. These desk clerks deal with enough ‘John Smiths’ and ‘Joe Blows’ that a false name on the register won’t spook them. It’s the picture that will get us our shooters...not the name.”

  Deputy SAC Lou Hidalgo had listened from the back of the group. He was not there to pass judgment on Art’s plan of action, though Jerry Donovan had cautioned him to do just that. What he had heard didn’t bother him in the least. It was a smart operation. But he did have some questions. “Art, what’s the separation on the two teams going to be?”

  “Two short blocks,” he answered. Los Angeles, like many cities, was a patchwork of rectangular blocks with short and long sides. “If we get a hit, the other team can be there in a minute.”

  “And the rovers?” Hidalgo went on.

  “Sixty agents out there now. When we find them, we lock the area up tight and get any innocents away from the scene. LAPD will set up a perimeter, and we make our move...even if that’s just waiting.”

  Hidalgo nodded approval. Art Jefferson, despite Donovan’s worries, didn’t need watching anymore. At one time, maybe, but no longer. His choice of Omar Espinosa, a tough, straight-shooting agent, as a second in this case only added to that belief. “Do it.”

  Frankie took the wallet and slid the license into the plastic cover that would prevent too close an examination when showed to the desk clerks. Shelley Murdock did the same. The choice of the two female agents to do the point work was a practical one. Women were less threatening. It was societal, and Art was willing to use whatever tricks he could muster to catch the killers of Thom Danbrook. A suspicious desk clerk could ruin it all.

  “Okay, partner, showtime,” Frankie said.

  Art checked the communications rig on her. It would allow her to speak to the three Bureau cars tasked with watching her backside, but not to hear them. An earpiece would be too obvious. Almost as obvious as her anticipation of this. “Right. You just keep talking. Let us know what’s going on.”

  “Easy enough.” Frankie tucked her holster farther back than it usually rode, hiding it under the loose jacket.

  “We’ll keep you in sight,” Art said. It was more of a promise. It was also a need, he worried.

  “Okay,” Frankie responded quickly. “Let’s get to—”

  Art grabbed her arm and pulled her into their cubicle. The other agents had filtered toward the elevator, leaving them alone.

  “What?”

  “Frankie, this is for real.”

  She looked up at her partner with an expression of puzzlement and anger. “What the hell do you think I think it is?”

  “It certainly isn’t a fucking dream,” Art yelled in a hushed voice, one eye on the group of agents just boarding the elevator. The look of recognition in Frankie’s face washed away the other emotions. “Yeah, that’s right. Your mother called me.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she’s worried about you. Just like I am.” He let go of her arm. “What is going on up there, Frankie? Huh? This is not some personal vendetta you can let your mind dream about, because I am not willing to let that cross over into your behavior. No chance.”

  She swallowed hard, her eyes locked on those of the man she respected more than any other. On the man she hated almost as much as herself at the moment. “It won’t.”

  “I can take you off of this, Frankie.”

  “Then why haven’t you?” It was a simple question, and a more difficult challenge.

  “Because I have faith in you, partner.” He glared down at her. “And in your professionalism. Don’t give me any reason to doubt that.”

  “I won’t,” Frankie said, meaning it at the moment. It was the future that she wasn’t sure of.

  “Then let’s get going.”

  Frankie watched Art turn and walk toward the elevator, leaving her alone. Very alone. “Yeah, let’s.”

  * * *

  No booze. No broads. Just a too-soft mattress and the first hangover in years that he hadn’t doused with bourbon.

  Sober mornings were pretty shitty, George Sullivan thought upon waking to his first in a long time. But it was the first, he realized. Maybe, like the booze that had kept him from experiencing them, they got better with age.

  He rolled to a sitting position on the motel
bed, the soaked sheets twisted around his body. Instinctively he looked to the nightstand for the bottle, but there was none. He had brought none. That reality made him snicker to himself. Was this Step One of the Twelve? he jokingly mused.

  There was something on the nightstand, though. George took it in his hand, his half-medicated thoughts from the night before returning. Go there? he wondered, looking at the address on the keytab. They might be .. .

  The fear made him want to drink. Want it really bad. The want was the demon to conquer, not the booze. To conquer it, he would have to get past the fear. Have to face it. To prove that he could. It was his job. It was his life.

  It was his last chance.

  George stood from the bed on wobbly legs. His head immediately began to spin. Neither malady, though, would deter him. He clutched the key tightly and looked around the room for his clothes. There was no time for a shower. This story couldn’t wait.

  * * *

  Garrity picked the phone up on the first ring. “Hello.”

  “Yes.”

  The lightly accented voice was unmistakable. “We’ve got trouble.”

  The contact noticed the absence of traffic noises in the background. This sounded like... “Where are you?”

  Garrity gulped. “Home.”

  “What! Are you out of your fucking mind! What the fuck are you thinking!”

  “Listen, I had no choice. My car is dead, and I have something that can’t wait.”

  A loud breath blew through the phone line. “Goddammit!” There was a pause. “What is so fucking important that you can’t follow procedures?”

  “There is a missile still there. There really is.”

  There was more silence. He wasn’t supposed to know that. “What do you... Do you mean they think there is one?”

  “No. This isn’t like before. This time they have some sort of proof.”