by Cliff Ryder
As he carried a hard-sided rifle case aboard, Marcus noticed that Jonas moved more gingerly than before and occasionally a wince of pain crossed his features. He’d also noticed the dark stain on the aft deck, as well as what were obviously bullet holes pocking the back of the ship. He thought about asking Jonas, but instead went looking for Karen, finding her on the platform, checking equipment against a BlackBerry device.
“Hey, you got a minute?” he asked.
“I do, but you don’t,” she responded.
“What went down here? Jonas looks hurt, and I haven’t seen any of the crew except for you two, not to mention the obvious damage. Were you guys boarded?”
“Yeah.” Karen filled him in on what had happened earlier, including the casualty count. “They wanted it all, but bit off more than they could chew. We’ve got them under armed guard below, and drugged, as well—I don’t want anyone making an escape attempt or trying another shot at taking the ship.” She took a deep breath. “But that’s not important right now. You need to get your mind focused on your own mission, not what happened here.”
“Right. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
She glared at him. “Don’t be sorry for us. Be sorry for those poor bastards below. And make sure our people didn’t die for nothing.”
Marcus nodded, taken a bit aback by the cold fury in her eyes.
Jonas walked up at that moment. “This the last of it?”
“Yes. Good hunting,” Karen said.
There it was, Marcus thought. That wince again. Hope that injury doesn’t slow him down too much.
Jonas nodded, picked up one last piece of gear and stepped aboard the speedboat. Marcus snatched the last duf-fel bag and followed.
“Keep heading south until you’re about fifteen miles out.
Anyone gives you trouble—you know what to do,” Jonas called back.
Karen nodded, arms folded tight across her stomach.
The older man settled in at the helm and directed Marcus to cast off the mooring line. He fired up the engines and reversed away from the yacht, then turned the sleek go-fast boat south and accelerated until they were speeding across the calm Atlantic Ocean.
Marcus alternated between prepping their equipment, keeping an eye out for hostile ships and watching Jonas pilot the boat. Jonas stood stock-still, guiding the craft with minute adjustments of the wheel, but this time there was no disguise, no subterfuge in him. Dressed in tiger-stripe camouflage, with a matching cap on his head, load-bearing web gear over his chest and a pistol on his hip, he looked like what he was—a professional soldier on the way to execute his duty, one who wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in his way.
The younger man finished his premission checklist and readied both Jonas’s and his packs. They had over half an hour to go, and there was one nagging question on Marcus’s mind. “Can I ask you a question?”
Jonas answered without looking at him. “Yeah, if you keep your eyes open on your side.”
Marcus was already scanning the dark waters on his right.
“I know why we’re going back. My question is, why not let it happen? Why not let the Castros get capped and the people remake the country and lead themselves for a change?”
Jonas’s flat gaze flicked over at Marcus. “Verdammt, you been talking to Castilo recently?”
“Hey, I know it wouldn’t be easy, but even a few hundred, or even thousand eggs broken would be worth the possibility of establishing a more democratic nation in the Caribbean, one that could serve to project our interests to other nations like Haiti and also put others farther south and east on notice that a change is beginning in the area.”
“Spoken like a true Washington policy wonk.” Jonas’s eyes never left the horizon as he spoke. “That method of regime change has already been tried. The U.S. government overthrew Cuba’s government early in the twentieth century, replaced a democracy with a theocracy in Iran, worked with—and then against Hussein against Iran—before invading that little corner of Middle Eastern paradise, helped destabilize Chile, which led to Pinochet assuming power, toppled the South Vietnamese government and several others throughout Central America, all of which led to instability in each country and region.”
Marcus opened his mouth to reply, but Jonas cut him off by stabbing at the dashboard with his finger. “Every single time. Meanwhile, countries like Libya have come around to a more cooperative way of thinking, without anyone having to bomb them back to the Stone Age. The point is, odds are that decapitating the head of the snake—and he is a despotic bastard, make no mistake about it—would tear the country apart, no matter what rosy predictions government analysts a thousand miles away have made. Like it or not, there is still a strong faction that clings to the notion of communism being a good thing. There are even students there who think it can still work, despite the ample evidence to the contrary. As much as we don’t like it, the only way to really help Cuba is to gradually let nature take its course. The brothers won’t last forever, and when they’re gone, your country, mine and others will be waiting to help Cubans really help themselves.”
Marcus was silent for a long moment, considering his reply. “It’s just that—I saw how people had to live over there, while rich European tourists jet in, visit the local culture and jet out again. I know this isn’t the only place it happens, but it just seems so wrong, particularly when they insist on following this backward path.”
“Well, I think you’re correct, but it’s also happening all over the world—only in many places, there aren’t any tourists. While Room 59 may not be able to do everything, we can at least try to ensure that some places don’t get any worse. If given the opportunity to prevent a dictatorship from rising, I’m sure any of us would leap at the chance to nip it in the bud, but what we’re heading into—doing what many would see as the wrong thing for the right reason, that’s the really hard choice to make. Bottom line is, the more palatable solution is to not accelerate change so quickly that the island destroys itself, but to ensure that when they’re ready to make that change—and I think they will be, in time—they can do so without resorting to another violent revolution. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen plenty of civil wars, and they’re never a good thing.”
“Yeah.” Marcus turned back to the ocean, mulling over what Jonas had said. It was true that the American involve- ment in manipulating foreign governments had often resulted in worse conditions. But there were isolated victories, too, he thought, like removing Noriega from Panama, and taking out Milosevic in the Balkans. He didn’t think anyone could say either of those hadn’t been justified. But do one or two right acts make up for several wrong ones, especially when the wrong ones mean fighting unwinnable wars for years on end? That question nagged at him for the rest of the ride, but try as he might, he couldn’t come up with a suitable answer.
When he saw the night-shrouded coastline of Cuba break up the endless expanse of water, Jonas was unsure how he felt.
Seeing the place that had changed his life so many years ago—
and had just changed his life again earlier that evening, Jonas was surprised to find he didn’t feel sadness or anger or even nervous anticipation at returning. His mind was calm, evaluating and estimating possible plans of attack, options and escape routes, even though he didn’t have the full information needed. This was what it was all about, he thought, working on the fly, improvising when necessary—just like the last time.
June 19, 1973
JONAS FROZE for a second, then pulled back, making sure he was out of sight. The truck still burned brightly in the clearing, which was now devoid of any other living thing.
“Hey, you out there!” a voice shouted in Spanish. “We have your accomplice. Surrender, and she will live.”
A part of Jonas’s mind said he should withdraw, that the mission had been accomplished and that the girl was an acceptable casualty, especially when weighed against saving the rest of his team from an ambush. He didn’t give that
idea a second thought.
Rolling left, he had worked about a quarter of the way around the clearing, and was in a position to see into the ruin of the sugar mill, where he figured the soldiers were holding Marisa. Rapid, high-pitched cursing, followed by a loud slap confirmed his suspicion.
“You have one minute to give yourself up. Otherwise she dies!” While the voice kept shouting, Jonas crawled closer, counting on the burning truck and the yelling man to cover any noise of his passing. Peeking out of the foliage again, he got enough of a view through the narrow window on the side of the tumbledown building, and saw shapes moving around inside. He knew he would have only one chance. He peered around for anyone nearby, but saw no movement.
The rest of the soldiers probably all took cover in the building, he thought. Grabbing the trunk of a palm tree, he pulled himself upright, then braced the rifle against it, wedging the stock into a piece of bark that had split from the trunk.
“Thirty seconds!” The voice sounded even more furious now, and Jonas’s other concern—besides trying to hit a mostly concealed target inside a building—was that the soldier would lose it and kill Marisa anyway. But he forced that thought from his mind and steadied his breathing, sucking in oxygen to try to restore his depleted muscles.
Jonas sighted in on the building and aimed at the upper-right quadrant of the wall. From how the man’s voice carried away from him, Jonas pegged him as standing to the left of the doorway, with her kneeling in the middle of the room so he could cover her and yell out into the clearing.
He took one more deep breath, and as he let it out, Jonas’s pain and exhaustion fell away, replaced by calm certainty.
If he failed now, at least he had tried to save Marisa, and that was the best he could do. His only hope was that she would be able to seize the opportunity he hoped to give her.
At the bottom of his exhalation, he held his breath, and for a moment, his entire body stilled. Jonas lined up his sights, imagining the head and chest of his target inside. He squeezed the trigger. He moved the rifle to the left a fraction and squeezed again, then repeated the action one more time before taking cover by the expedient method of falling backward, pulling his rifle out of the tree as he did so. From the ground he saw a small form lunge out of the mill door as AK-47 fire exploded from every window and door on the building’s left side.
Jonas crawled farther into the jungle, pausing every couple of yards to send covering fire high into the mill, trying to keep the soldiers’heads down. He had no idea whether Marisa had made it out alive or was lying somewhere, riddled by bullets.
Slinging his rifle, he made his way back to the trail road, heading as quickly as possible to the hollow where they had first found the truck. He heard shouts and scattered rifle fire behind him as the Cubans tried to flush him out of hiding.
He didn’t know if it had been a few or ten minutes, but at last Jonas arrived back at the clearing. Nothing appeared disturbed—if she was hiding, she was doing a good job.
“Marisa?” he called out. “It’s Karl. Where are you? We have to get out of here—they’ll be coming soon.”
The bushes parted, and she stepped out, walking un- steadily toward him. Even in the dim moonlight he saw her bruised and rapidly swelling lip and cheek. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Better now that you’re here.” She swayed, and he reached out to catch her. “No—I’m fine—we have to get moving.”
She slipped her head under his shoulder, and this time he didn’t protest, but allowed her to lead him into the jungle on the other side of the path, each of them supporting the other as they went. Flashes of light bobbed along the trail as the soldiers searched for them, but Jonas and Marisa were deep into the thicker jungle, leaving the ambush site farther behind with every labored step.
They walked until both were ready to drop from exhaustion. Jonas’s ankle was a mass of white-hot pain from the recent abuse. Even trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Cubans, he had insisted on doubling back and going in circles, laying false trails just in case the soldiers were better at tracking than he thought.
When he had mentioned his concern to Marisa, she had laughed softly. “Didn’t you know? Only crazy people go into the jungle at night.”
As tired as he was, the joke still made him smile. “You’ll get no argument from me on that.” When he was sure they were safe, he got his map out and figured out their rough location. “We’re about a mile from the pickup point, and we need to get the raft and move it to the secondary drop zone.
Are you up to getting there tonight?”
“The farther we get away from those bastards, the better I’ll feel.” She rose and helped him up. They set out, Jonas cutting a path only after they had traveled about twenty yards, so they wouldn’t leave such an obvious trail. Fortune favored them and the jungle thinned out as they got closer to the coast. The tang of the salt air began to overpower the fetid smell of wet, rotting vegetation, and Jonas was glad to breathe it in.
They pushed through one more cluster of dense brush and found themselves back where they had started, seemingly a lifetime ago. Jonas limped to the raft hidden in the underbrush and pulled the fronds and cut bushes away. With only two people, and one of them injured, the launch was slow and painful, but at last they got the raft in the water. Jonas broke a low-hanging palm frond in half, making sure the stem attached to the tree pointed west, then helped Marisa aboard, before starting the nearly silent electric motor.
Slowly they put away from the shore.
“What now?” Marisa asked.
“We travel to the secondary drop point, drop anchor and wait for a signal from my team.” Jonas guided the rubber raft through the calm water about two miles from their original landing site, and found a small island off the main coast where they could hide, yet still see the far shore with ease.
He tossed out the small anchor, then settled back against the raft’s outer tube, relaxing for the first time since he had come ashore. “If you want to rest, go ahead, I’ll keep watch,”
he said.
In the moonlight, Marisa looked as if she was shivering.
“I’m cold,” she said.
Jonas hesitated for a moment. “You might be going into shock.” He rummaged through the small case in the raft.
“I’ve got a blanket. Here, take it.”
He wrapped it around her, feeling her shake beneath his hands. “Come here.” He pulled her next to him, feeling her snuggle up to his dirty, sweaty body. Not having anywhere else to put his arm, he wrapped it around her shoulders, sharing his warmth.
“Karl?” her voice sounded drowsy. “You weren’t going to leave me back there, were you?”
“Of course not.” The truth in his statement assuaged some of the guilt he still felt at not being able to tell her his real name. He shifted his weight to a more comfortable position, trying not to notice her warm breath on his neck. He glanced down at her, only to find Marisa staring up at him, her blue eyes shining in the moonlight, her lips slightly parted. Almost before he knew what he was doing, Jonas bent his head down and kissed her, lightly at first, but more passionately as she responded to him.
JONAS’S CELL PHONE SHOOK, and he answered it, setting aside the memories. “Go.”
Kate’s voice sounded in his ear. “Target hasn’t stopped yet, but has bypassed Santa Clara, and appears to be heading toward the coast. The good news is that we have a very likely destination. We picked up communications regarding a tour of the Heriberto Duquesne sugar-processing company, which was converted to processing sugarcane juice into alcohol in 2006.”
Jonas checked the phone’s screen, which showed a blown-up map of the area, with a little red dot marking Damason’s position in real time as he came closer to his final destination.
“The road he’s on heads right to Remidios, near the plant.” Another dot marked the town, along with the plant’s location and, more importantly, the distance it was from the coas
t. “You two have your work cut out for you,” Kate said.
“What, that little walk? It’s not even fifteen miles from the coast.” Jonas showed Marcus the location, and he nodded. “We’ll be in and out before anyone even knows we’re there.”
“For your sake, I hope so. We’ll be sending you updated location maps of your target every minute. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Alpha and Beta out.” Jonas cranked the boat to the southeast and skirted the coast, throttling forward until they were almost flying across the water, his mind totally focusing on the mission that lay ahead.
Damason strained his eyes in the early-morning darkness, trying to make out their destination as soon as it was visible.
“Relax, we’ll have plenty of time to scout the area before preparing for his arrival.” Even as he spoke, Lopez coaxed a bit more acceleration out of the truck.
“Easy for you to say—you just have to watch my back.
I’ve got the hard part, remember?” Damason was more than a bit irritable. The hurried trip out to sea and back, followed by the long ride across the country with no sleep, had not done his mood any good at all.
“It’s bad luck to talk about it. Let’s just get there and have a look around. I’m sure you’ll feel better once we get everything set up,” Lopez said.
“For our sake, I hope so.” Damason gnawed on an already ragged thumbnail, more worried than ever.
Lopez swung the truck left onto a narrow dirt road, and they smelled the thick, sweet-sour scent of cane pulp in the air. It grew stronger, and a few minutes later they came upon the cluster of buildings that made up the sugar refinery. There were already lights on in the yard and men walking around, no doubt preparing for their supreme leader’s visit. Lopez drove past the main group of tin-roofed buildings, continuing up the road to the next corner on his left. Turning, he went around the perimeter of the compound, he and Damason both noting sight lines, copses of trees, outlying building placement, exit roads and various places an assassin could use for cover.
