Juices pumped through him but he forced himself to behave with leaderly calm. He went jogging across to the man pinned under the pole. It was Ordovara and he was quite dead, his rib cage crushed; Cielo turned away, then turned back and laid a finger along Ordovara’s throat to feel for a pulse. There was none. A stink of excrement hung in the air.
He went to the lip and looked down. Two men were manhandling the capsized field gun away from Kruger who lay on his belly with both legs splayed out at weird angles. Even from up here Cielo could hear Kruger’s moans. Well, at least he was still alive but it looked as if both legs had been crushed.
He felt weight behind him. When he turned Vargas was there. Cielo pointed toward the body of Ordovara. “Get that thing off him and bring him down to the camp. Tell the others to clear up—get the equipment out of sight. Put Julio in charge. I’m going down.”
He strode along the rim, not hurrying, heading for the trail they’d cut down the side slope. It would take him fifteen minutes to cover the circuitous course but it was the only way down, short of rappelling down the cliff on a rope.
The fault, he thought, was no one’s but his own; he could lay the blame at no one else’s door. And how do I expiate this sin?
Ramirez was dead, half his face taken off by the whipping cable. The two dead men were not a major problem—only a major grief. It was Kruger who commanded his attention.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared it might be—the undercarriage of the field gun had landed square across the back of Kruger’s thighs but it was a pneumatic tire and that had absorbed a bit of the impact; the bones of both Kruger’s legs were broken but the flesh hadn’t been badly severed. Nevertheless he was already swelling up and it was obvious a good many blood vessels had been crushed. With immediate sophisticated medical attention it might be possible to save his legs. Up here there wasn’t much they could do but splint the fractures.
He took Julio aside. “You’d better break radio silence. Call in the helicopter. We’ll have to carry him up there.”
“You want to risk everyone for Kruger?”
“Do you think I should let him lose his legs, Julio?”
“He’s lost them anyway.”
“Now you’re a surgeon, are you?”
“Rodrigo—listen, think what will happen if we break security. The old man, what’ll he think? What’ll he do?”
“I don’t care right now. We owe Kruger a chance to keep his legs. Call Zapatino.”
“What if I can’t raise him?”
“You’ll raise somebody.”
Emil met Cielo at the door. The big youth’s eyes were filled with scorn. He conducted Cielo through the house to the tiled deck where his grandfather sat in a cane chair with a newspaper across his lap. Through an open door Cielo glimpsed the cathode screen of a stock market quotations machine. The old man sat with his chin on his chest and appeared to be dozing but then the newspaper rattled in his hands and he tossed it to the table beside him and lifted his eyes. He did not look well, Cielo thought. It was something other than old age or irritation; a malaise. For some time the old man seemed to have been shrinking into gauntness—Cielo wondered if he had cancer.
The old man said, “How is Kruger?”
“The chances are pretty good, they said.”
Emil said, “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“I know that.” He didn’t want to give Emil a chance to exploit it; he said, “It was my fault.”
“Zapatino tells me it was an accident,” the old man said.
“Accidents don’t just happen. Someone’s careless—then there’s an accident. We should have made surer of the rock before we bolted the derrick to it.”
Emil said, “It’s easy to say that now,” and the old man, misunderstanding him, nodded his head. Then Emil said, “It’s magnanimous of him to take responsibility for it, isn’t it. Now that it doesn’t cost him anything.”
The old man ignored him. “Kruger’s the engineer. It was his fault, then, not yours. Must you burden yourself with feelings of guilt for every mishap that takes place around you?”
“I’m in command. The responsibility’s mine. If it weren’t for me Ramirez and Ordovara would be alive.”
“If it weren’t for me they’d be alive, too,” the old man pointed out, “and if it weren’t for you they might all have died long ago in a Havana dungeon, yourself included. You mustn’t put on sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your life on their account, hijo.”
“One day I’ll get over it,” Cielo said philosophically.
Emil pressed his opening: “Papa, he broke security. We can’t dismiss that so easily.”
“I believe we’ve covered the breach as well as could be done,” the old man said. “We’ve made Kruger out to be a tourist who was changing a tire when the jack slipped in the mud and the car fell on him. It explains the imprint of the tire tread on his legs. It’s not as if he had a bullet in him—there’ll be no official inquiry. Cielo did the right thing. We’re not savages—we don’t leave men to die just because they’ve been injured.”
“All the same. They could have brought Kruger down in the Jeep. They didn’t have to violate radio silence.”
Cielo watched him loom and wondered if the youth would have the audacity to challenge him for the leadership of the group. Not yet, he thought. He’s not ready just yet. He’s preparing the ground now, that’s all.
“Breaking radio security,” Emil said, “that’s a serious mistake.”
“I had to make the decision on the spot,” Cielo replied. “I don’t regret it.”
“Then you’re a fool!”
Cielo laughed at him. It was the only way to deal with him.
The old man said, “Emil has a point, you know.”
“Not realistically. Nobody has direction finders zeroed in on us. Nobody even knows we’re here. The odds were favorable and my concern was Kruger. I stand by the decision.”
“You’re wrong,” the old man said, “at least in part. They know we’re here.”
Cielo looked from face to face. They were both watching him. “I wasn’t told that, was I?”
“I’m telling you now,” the old man said.
Emil said, “It changes things. They’re getting close—we can’t afford sloppy leadership any longer. We can’t afford to allow accidents to happen—we can’t allow security to be broken again.”
The old man lifted a palm toward his grandson. “The most important thing is that Cielo didn’t panic. It must have been a dreadful few moments. Cielo kept his head. That’s why he’s in command.”
It was a vote of confidence but Cielo thought gloomily, I wish you trusted me less.
The old man said, “They’ve traced the kidnaping of Ambassador Gordon to Puerto Rico.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’m not blaming you. You have a distressing tendency to shoulder the responsibility for everything—I’m not putting any fault on you. The fact remains, they’ve traced you—at least they know you’re on the island and perhaps they know who you are. I believe you know two of the men involved in the investigation—Glenn Anders and Harrison Crobey. I remember the names from years ago when you trained in Alabama. Your reports mentioned Crobey several times.”
Cielo stood at the parapet. A white sloop gamboled offshore. The sun gave it the look of a hovering butterfly. Crobey, he thought. He’d always been a little afraid of Crobey, but he liked him.
“I’ve heard of Anders but I never met him.”
“He was Crobey’s liaison with Langley.”
“Yes, I suppose he was.”
“There was a young woman with Anders. Presumably a member of his staff.” The old man squirmed a bit in the cane chair and spent a moment clicking his teeth and it occurred to Cielo the old man was having trouble for some reason—searching for the right words. “There was a certain—breakdown in communications here in my headquarters. When we learned of these people’s activities we attempted to shadow them
and take certain steps to throw them off the scent and discourage them. You know how these things are. Orders pass down a chain. A few links in the chain turn out to be imperfect conductors of the current—information is garbled and there’s an excess of zeal or a misunderstanding of instructions.”
Emil’s face was getting red; he was turning his back and his shoulders lifted defiantly.
The old man continued: “The young woman with Anders was killed. Not by my order, but it’s happened. Like you with your accidents, I must take responsibility for mine. The killing of this unfortunate woman may stir up the hornets in the nest. I’ve no doubt the search will be intensified. Of course the girl may have been simply Anders’ lover but I doubt it, and it makes no difference anyway. What has happened is tantamount to what happens when a police officer is killed. The department tends to drop everything else in the rush to apprehend the cop-killer. We can expect a good deal of pressure. For that reason I propose that you discontinue further shipments and arms purchases for the time being.”
Relief flooded him; he tried not to let it show.
The old man said, “We must pull in our horns and wait it out. Cover our tracks completely.”
“This killing—was it Luz?”
“No. You don’t trust Luz, do you?”
“No, I never have.”
“You needn’t be concerned about him. Luz obeys my orders without question and without deviation. He will continue to do so even if the orders come from beyond the grave. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” The meaning was clear and it proved once again the old man’s shrewdness. After the old man died Luz would deliver the safe-deposit key to Cielo and Julio. The half million dollars: the house, the landing, the fifty-foot boat. That was the leash to which Cielo was tethered. That and his loyalty to this absurd old man.
Then he understood something else. The anguish with which the old man had skirted the issue of the CIA woman’s death, and the way Emil had flushed and averted his face—it could only mean the woman had been killed by young Emil, or by others at Emil’s command.
Cielo said, “It means postponing the attack on Havana then.”
“It can’t be helped. We must go to ground. Keep all your men in the camp, don’t let anyone out on furlough. Keep your radio receiver switched on at all times and have a man monitor it twenty-four hours a day. If we learn of any danger approaching you we’ll give you warning by radio, but you’re to use it only for receiving and you’ll make no transmissions. Questions?”
“Harry Crobey—is he in charge of the investigation?”
“We don’t know. My sources in the government are not master spies, you know. I acquire dribbles of information here and there. I know that Anders is a sort of troubleshooter for a department of the CIA headed by a gentleman named O’Hillary who seems to have all the earmarks of a clever and ambitious civil servant. Up to now the handling of the investigation of the Mexican kidnaping has been guided more by political considerations than by legalistic ones, but the murder of this girl may change that. We don’t know yet. I don’t have a private pipeline into the White House or the CIA’s top echelons. I have only friends, here and there, with their ears to the ground. Of course I have friends on the police here in San Juan. They know about Anders well enough. They haven’t been able to tell me very much about Crobey, however. He’s here and he met with Anders—just before the girl died—but the nature of his official function is obscure. We’re not even certain who he’s working for. He told a police detective he’d come to Puerto Rico to scout film locations for a Hollywood director. That’s patently ridiculous, of course, but it shows how little we’ve learned. There’s a woman with Crobey, too—either an associate or a courtesan.”
“What’s her name?”
“Marchant, I think. Or Marchand. Something like that.”
“Carole Marchand? She’s the mother of the boy Emil killed.”
“Then perhaps that’s who she is.” The old man didn’t seem interested. “I keep my lines open to the police, of course, and any information they have tends to filter back to me. But if Crobey is free-lancing we’ll have no way to anticipate his movements.”
Cielo said, “Crobey’s like a mamba. I know him—he’s dangerous.”
“We’ll see that he doesn’t find you. Your job now is to go to ground and keep the others in the burrow with you. Don’t communicate with Soledad.”
“I know that well enough,” he said irritably.
“I’m sorry. Love of a woman often makes a man foolish. I’m fortunate to be so old. Pretty girls no longer turn my head.”
That wasn’t true at all; the old man was only having his little joke as a way of easing the admonishment. There were always delectable girls around the old man. Cielo didn’t like to think how they probably must service him.
“I wonder how they traced us here,” Cielo said.
“I’ve no idea. But Puerto Rico’s a big country. Let’s just make sure they don’t trace us any farther than they already have.”
“Will you have Anders and Crobey killed, then?”
“I haven’t decided yet. The decision will depend on how close to us they come.”
Emil, throughout this, had wandered about the deck with his hands in his pockets. Cielo said, “What about Emil? Do I take him with me?”
“No. Emil will remain here and go about his business as if nothing were amiss. His absence from this house might create suspicion.”
Cielo was relieved not to be harassed by Emil’s presence; things in the camp would be tense enough without him.
Emil said, “While you’re waiting up there you might draw up the plans for the coup in detail. I’ll have a look at them afterwards. This investigation will die away like they always do. When it does we’ll make our final decisions. There’s not going to be any more foot-dragging.”
The old man smiled. “To the young everything must happen quickly.”
It was more than that, Cielo thought. Emil wanted to get the job done while the old man was still alive because only in that way could Emil be sure of securing the power he wanted for himself. The old man would see to it that Emil was looked after: Perhaps Emil even had designs on Castro’s position. Without the old man there wouldn’t be a prayer of that happening—Emil had no constituency. So he had to move fast.
All I have to do, Cielo thought, is delay things until the old man dies.
After that it would be possible to deal with Emil, because he could be isolated.
Emil watched him angrily: For an instant Cielo was afraid the youth had read his mind. Emil was clever in his brutal way.
The old man reached for the newspaper beside him. “Luz will drive you back. I know you’d prefer another chauffeur but Luz is the one I trust to make sure you’re not followed.”
On his way out of the house Cielo felt a measure of dulled contentment. The predicament now was in the old man’s lap. The old man would die soon and everything would dwindle away—all Cielo had to do was go to ground and stay there.
Chapter 15
The message at the hotel desk advised Glenn Anders to call a phone number between four and six. He took it to be the number of a public telephone. He made the call from a booth in the lobby of the Sheraton; Harry Crobey answered on the fourth ring.
“We heard about Rosalia.” It was, in its tone, sufficient expression of shared sorrow. Crobey’s voice went on: “We should meet.”
“I agree. Where and when?”
Crobey gave him instructions and Anders broke the connection. He made another call immediately, to the Department of Agriculture office where they’d given him a desk. The GS-8 on the front desk, a pale man whose name he kept having trouble remembering, exchanged identifying greetings with him and said, “We’re all awful sorry about that young lady, Mr. Anders.”
“Did Langley call back after I left?”
“No sir.”
“No messages of any kind from O’Hillary?”
“There’s a Tele
x, sir. Plain English. It’s only a confirmation.”
“Read it to me anyway.”
“Yes sir. Message reads, ‘Prior instructions remain in effect until further notice. No change in orders.’ That’s it, sir—just the signature.”
“All right. Thanks.”
He went outside with his hand on the flat automatic pistol in his pocket. There were taxis at the curb; he boarded the first one and rode it to the north gate of the university and paid it off there and walked through the campus, stopping twice to check behind him. Students milled about the lawns and a couple was necking under a palm tree; a fat youth sat on the grass reading a comic book. Anders drifted aimlessly among the buildings, going in and out, upstairs and down, from one building to another, staying within crowds when he could; he kept an eye on his watch and at exactly half past five he emerged from the south gate of the campus and walked a block to Calle de Diego where a taxi was just pulling up: Anders stepped in and the car pulled away and Crobey, on the other side of the seat, twisted around to look back through the window.
“Nobody came with me,” Anders said
“All right.”
Crobey dismissed the taxi and they walked together through a dusty passage, bordered with scrubby bougainvillea and oleander; Crobey led him erratically through the turnings and kept looking back. No one was following them; Anders was beginning to be annoyed by the excessiveness of the precautions when Crobey led him out onto a paved street where a Ford Bronco waited at the curb with Carole Marchand behind the wheel. Anders tipped the passenger seat forward and climbed into the back; Crobey got in and Anders said, “Good evening.”
“My condolences,” she said, “and I mean that.”
“Were you two followed last night?”
“Yes,” Crobey said. “We shook them.”
His hands wrenched at each other; he turned his stare out the window because he didn’t want to cry again, not in front of them. “You know she was a little wacky, all right, she was far too young for the likes of me, none of it made any sense anyway—just a kid from the office they assigned to run errands for me. She was Cuban herself, you know. For a while I even suspected she might be a plant. Then after a while I didn’t give a damn.”
Marchand Woman Page 20
