The Ajax Protocol (The Project)

by Lukeman, Alex

  "There are hospitals in Miami," Ronnie said.

  "I don't think he'll last that long." Selena pushed away a wisp of hair from her forehead.

  "There's nothing between here and Miami," Nick said.

  "Yes there is."

  They all turned to look at Elizabeth.

  "Guantánamo isn't far from here. We can be there in a day. They have a hospital on the base."

  "If we go to Guantánamo, they'll lock us up," Nick said.

  "If we don't go to Guantánamo, Lamont will die," Elizabeth said.

  "It could work to our advantage," Stephanie said. "If we can convince them not to hold us, we might be able to get an airlift back to the mainland."

  "How do you plan to do that?" Nick asked. "Tell them we're the good guys and Edmonds is plotting to overthrow the government? That'll go over well."

  "They won't believe anything we say," Elizabeth said. "Not without serious backup."

  "Maybe we can get backup," Stephanie said.

  "Who did you have in mind?" Elizabeth asked.

  "Call Hood. They'll listen to him. Langley practically runs that place."

  "I'm not sure how much he'll help us," Elizabeth said. "He's already poking his nose into the Pentagon. He'd be supporting us against the acting President. It would put his entire career on the line."

  They could hear Lamont coughing in his cabin. There was something dark about the sound, something frightening.

  "Listen to that," Stephanie said. "I don't think we have much of a choice."

  "Give me the phone," Elizabeth said.

  An hour later they had turned into the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti, headed for Guantánamo. Hood had agreed to clear them through. Once they got to the base, Lamont would be taken to the hospital. A plane would take the others back to the mainland.

  "Hood is worried about unusual activity by Homeland Security," Elizabeth said.

  "What kind of activity?" Nick asked.

  "A nationwide joint exercise with the Army is planned for later this week. It's supposed to be an emergency preparedness exercise. Something to test our response in the event of terrorist attack."

  "Yeah, right," Ronnie said.

  "They're getting ready to deploy that weapon," Nick said, "and we're out here sailing around off Cuba."

  "Maybe not for much longer," Selena said. She pointed at a low, gray shape coming fast across the water.

  Nick looked grim. "That's a Cuban patrol boat. The Russians sold a few to Castro years ago. I thought they'd all been sunk or decommissioned."

  "I guess not all of them," Ronnie said. They could see the Cuban flag flying from the stern of the vessel.

  "We're still outside Cuba's territorial waters," Nick said. "They shouldn't be here."

  "I don't think they care about that," Elizabeth said.

  "Ronnie, come with me," Nick said. "We have to ditch the weapons before they get here."

  They went below and took out the weapons and handed them up to Selena. She passed them to Elizabeth, who dropped them over the side. The last to go were their pistols.

  They went up to the bridge to watch the Cuban vessel approach. The patrol boat was almost 200 feet long, gray and lethal. It bristled with weapons. There were deck guns fore and aft and antisubmarine missile launchers. The rail was lined with sailors armed with AK-47 carbines. As the vessel closed on them, an officer raised a bullhorn and shouted something.

  "What did he say?" Nick turned to Selena. Selena spoke fluent Spanish.

  "Classic," she said. "Heave to and prepare to be boarded."

  "They got cutlasses, too?" Ronnie said.

  Nick looked at him and shook his head. "Cut the engines," he said.

  Ronnie throttled back to an idle. The Island Angel rode uneasily in the water, rocking in the waves.

  "Selena," Nick said. "You do all the talking. See if you can talk us out of here."

  She took a deep breath and went down to the main deck. A motor launch with six sailors and the officer put off from the patrol boat and came alongside. They scrambled on board, weapons at the ready. They didn't look friendly. Two of the sailors disappeared into the main cabin.

  Nick watched from the bridge as Selena began speaking with the officer. It seemed to be going well. Then the Cuban began shouting at her. She backed up a step. Nick started down the steps toward them. The officer gave an order and the guns pointed toward him. The man said something. Nick didn't need to speak Spanish to know that he was being told to put his hands up.

  "Selena," he said as he raised his hands. "What's happening?"

  One of the sailors grasped Nick by the arm and pulled him off the steps. Another sailor went up to the bridge and prodded Ronnie and Elizabeth down with the barrel of his rifle. A sailor came out of the main cabin and said something to the officer. He had their passports in his hand.

  The officer looked at the documents and then at Nick.

  "Ustedes son espías norteamericanos. Si se resisten, se le disparó."

  "What did he say?" Ronnie asked.

  "He said we are American spies," Selena said. "If we resist, he'll shoot us. I think he means it."

  "Yanquis!" the officer said with contempt. He spat on the deck. "En el barco." He gestured at the motor launch.

  "Into the boat," Selena said.

  "What about Lamont?"

  Selena fired off some rapid Spanish. The officer replied and gestured again.

  "He says they will bring him aboard. Now, we must get in the boat."

  "I'm not going without Lamont. Tell him that."

  "I'm not sure that's a good idea," she said.

  "Tell him anyway."

  The officer was watching the exchange. Selena told him what Nick had said. His face got red and he shouted at one of the sailors. The man brought up the butt of his rifle and slammed Nick on the side of the head. Everything went dark.

  The first thing Nick was aware of when he woke was pain. He was lying on something hard and cold. The floor vibrated under him. He opened his eyes and light speared his brain like a dagger. He drifted back into unconsciousness.

  The next time he woke, Ronnie was sitting next to him. He could hear Lamont coughing.

  "Welcome back, amigo," Ronnie said. "You had a nice nap."

  "Yeah." Nick sat up. The room spun around him. There was a metal toilet bolted to the wall. He managed to reach it before he threw up. He retched and threw up again. He choked down the bile and caught his breath and waited for the dizziness to pass. He had the mother of all headaches. He wiped his sleeve across his lips.

  "Take it easy," Ronnie said. "You took a hell of a hit. Probably got a concussion."

  Nick leaned back against the wall next to the toilet "How long was I out?"

  "Maybe an hour."

  He looked around. The front of the cell was metal bars. The rest of the room was metal, painted flaking gray. There were no windows. A bare metal cot was bolted to the wall. Lamont lay on it, delirious.

  Ronnie nodded at him. "He's not doing so good."

  "Where are we?"

  "They took us on board and threw us in the brig." That explained the vibration in the floor.

  "Where are the others?"

  "Selena and Elizabeth are next to us in another cell."

  "We're screwed," Nick said.

  "Yeah," Ronnie said, "my thoughts exactly."

  CHAPTER 46

  It was going on dark by the time the boat stopped moving and the engines shut down. The Cubans brought them up to the deck. The patrol boat had docked at the waterfront of a good-sized city spread out along a broad bay. An ancient fortress of stone dominated the harbor from a high bluff. The salt air smelled of fish and diesel and wood smoke from a cooking fire. It was like being thrust into the middle of a picture postcard. It was pretty but Nick could have done without it.

  Guards marched them off the boat and shoved them sprawling into a windowless van that smelled of vomit. Someone slammed the door of the van and locked it. Lamont lay
on the floor of the truck, mumbling to himself. Elizabeth and Selena sat next to him.

  The van began to move. Selena laid a hand on Lamont's forehead. "He's burning up," she said.

  "He dies, I'm going to make someone pay for it," Nick said.

  "Where are we?" Ronnie said.

  "All I know is that it isn't Havana."

  "It's Santiago de Cuba," Selena said. "That's the only other big city in Cuba. The fortress is a famous historical site."

  "Wherever they're taking us, we're going to be interrogated," Nick said. The words came out slurred. One side of his face was swollen from the hit he'd taken on the Island Angel.

  "We can't tell them who we are," Elizabeth said.

  "They'll know who we are. They'll recognize me," Nick said.

  He was right. After the incident with the President in Jerusalem, every intelligence agency in the world had his photograph. There were few places he could go without being recognized if any of them were looking.

  "They might not," Elizabeth said. "It depends on who's in charge. But if it's the SDE, we're in trouble,"

  "SDE?" Selena said.

  "Seguridad del Estado, state security," Nick said. "Castro's secret police. They're bad people. The officer on that boat called us spies. We can count on SDE being in charge. They hate Americans."

  "This isn't the Cold War anymore," Selena said. "It's a long time since the Bay of Pigs."

  "Castro's revolutionary government has a long memory," Nick said. "The whole country is a throwback to the Cold War. Lots of things have gone wrong here and they blame us for all of it. We have to be prepared for anything."

  The van came to a sudden stop. They heard doors slam. Then the back door was pulled open.

  "Afuera!" a soldier yelled at them.

  They started to get out. Rough hands grabbed them and pulled them from the van, threw them down on a cobbled street and tied their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. The ties cut into Nick's wrists. He was hauled to his feet and frog marched at a quick pace toward a grim stone building with barred windows and through a door held open by an unsmiling soldier.

  Two men marched him down a flight of stairs and along a dim corridor. They jerked him to a stop before a metal door with a massive lock. One of the men turned a key in the lock and pulled open the door. Someone cut the ties on his hands. Before he could move, a boot in his back sent him flying. The door slammed shut.

  The floor was made of rough concrete. His back spasmed from the kick. He sat up and rubbed his wrists, waiting for circulation to return to his hands.

  The cell was narrow and old. The only light came from a small, dim window high up on the wall. A stinking hole in one corner was the toilet. There was no place to lie except on the cold floor. Nick listened. Faint sounds came from somewhere in the building. Someone screamed in the distance. The cry trailed off in a babbling wail.

  The light faded. He was in darkness.

  Something ran over his leg. He pulled back, a reflex. Something scrabbled across the floor in the dark.

  Rats. There were rats. Nick made a serious effort to calm himself. At least it isn't spiders, he thought. Too big to be a spider. Maybe.

  He sat for a long time in the darkness and listened to unseen things scuttle in his cell.

  CHAPTER 47

  When the door opened again, Nick had no idea how long he had been sitting in the darkness. They took him into a room and pushed him onto a hard wooden chair and strapped him down. Two guards stood behind him. A small man sat in front of him, behind a wooden desk that looked like something left over from a 40s movie.

  The Cuban had a thin mustache that did nothing to improve his looks or hide a bad complexion. He was dressed in a cheap brown suit and brown shoes. His shirt was a yellowed white under a narrow, black tie. He wore his hair slicked back and shiny under the overhead light.

  The man ignored Nick. For several minutes he studied papers on his desk, making an occasional note. When he finally looked up, his eyes were black and dead, as if they had seen things that had extinguished the light in them. They were not good eyes.

  "I am Captain Ortiz," he said. "I am going to ask you some questions. You will answer me truthfully. Do you understand?"

  His voice was flat and colorless His English was clear, articulate. An educated man, which as far as Nick was concerned made him more dangerous.

  "Why have you brought us here?" Nick said.

  Ortiz nodded at one of the guards. He began beating Nick with his fists. Nick closed his eyes and tried to make himself tight and small. He could do nothing with his arms strapped to the chair.

  "Enough," Ortiz said. The beating stopped. The guard stepped back.

  "I ask the questions here," Ortiz said. "Do you understand?"

  So that's how it's going to be, Nick thought. He spit blood onto the floor. "I understand."

  "You are Nicholas Carter, a spy for the American government." Ortiz held up a file in his hand. Nick saw his picture stapled onto it.

  "I never did like that picture," he said.

  "You do not deny that you are a spy," Ortiz said.

  Nick said nothing. There wasn't any point.

  "Why were you headed to Cuba?"

  "For medical help."

  "Where were you going?"

  "Guantánamo."

  The mention of Guantánamo seemed to trigger something in Ortiz. He nodded again at the guard. This time, the man took out a foot long length of heavy rope with a knot on the end of it and began beating Nick on his arms and legs. Each blow shuddered through his body. He grunted under the blows.

  When Ortiz signaled the guard to stop, Nick felt like he was on fire. He couldn't feel anything except pain. And anger.

  "That was for Guantánamo," Ortiz said.

  "Guantánamo is the best thing there is on this piss ant island," Nick said.

  This time both the guards beat him.

  "Stand him up," Ortiz said. The guards unstrapped Nick from the chair, lifted him to his feet and gripped him by each arm. Ortiz got up from behind his desk. He came over and stood in front of Nick. His face was ugly with hatred. He shouted in Nick's face, spraying him with flecks of spittle. His breath stank of garlic and onion.

  "My grandfather was killed by the Americans at the Bay of Pigs."

  Ortiz reached out and grabbed Nick's left hand.

  "Tell me why you are here."

  "For medical help." With a quick movement, Ortiz bent the last two fingers of Nick's hand backward. The bones snapped with a dull, thick sound.

  Nick screamed. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before.

  "Now you need medical help," Ortiz said. "You are a Yanqui spy. After I find out why you are here, I am going to send you to a place that makes your prison at Guantánamo look like a holiday resort."

  Ortiz was only inches away. Nick head butted him as hard as he could. Ortiz went backward, his eyes rolling up in his head. As he went down, Nick kicked him in the groin.

  The first blow from the guards knocked Nick unconscious.

  When he came to, he was lying on the floor of his cell. One of his eyes was closed and swollen. His body was a symphony of pain. He moved and sharp pain shot up his left arm from his injured hand.

  His hand was swollen and purple. The fourth finger and the pinky were bent to the side at a strange angle. Nick forced himself to look at it. He knew what he had to do. Before he could think much more about it, he took his right hand and pulled the damaged fingers straight.

  He screamed and blacked out again from the pain. When he came back, he lay curled up on the rough floor. Then he forced himself over to a corner of the cell where dripping water had collected in a small pool. He picked a dead cockroach out of the water, cupped some in his right hand and drank it.

  Weak daylight came through the filthy window. He wondered how the others were doing. He wondered if Selena was safe. He wondered how he could kill Ortiz.

  At least he had gotten to the son of a bitch. He
wouldn't be pleasuring his wife for awhile. If he had a wife. If any woman would have a snake like him. Nick was sure he was one Yanqui Ortiz would never forget, but that kick in the groin had probably signed his death warrant. There was nothing left to lose. Before Nick slipped back into oblivion, he decided that the next time the door opened he would try to overpower the guard.

  CHAPTER 48

  Nick heard the lock being turned in his cell door. There was light in the cell but he didn't know if it was the same day. He'd been half asleep or unconscious. Every part of his body hurt. His left hand glowed with pain. He forced himself to his feet. The door opened.

  Nick launched himself at the first man into the cell, like a linebacker taking down a fullback. The man grunted as they slammed into the wall. Then something hard hit him on the back of the head. The next thing he was aware of was the sound of voices. He was lying on the floor of the cell. There was something oddly familiar about one of the voices, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He slipped back into unconsciousness.

  He was sitting tilted back, a belt strapped across his waist. The seat vibrated gently. He could hear the sound of engines.

  A plane. I'm in a plane.

  Nick opened his eyes. He was in a private plane, a business jet elegant with accents of wood and leather. Selena was in the seat across the aisle from him. She looked worn and tired, her face strained. She smiled when she saw him looking at her.

  "Nick," she said. "You had me worried."

  He looked down at his injured hand. Someone had set the bones and splinted them and wrapped the fingers in tape. Under the bandage, the hand throbbed with dull, steady pain.

  Selena laid her hand on his arm. Her touch felt comforting, familiar. A tiny bit of the tension from the last few days melted away. He looked at her.

  "Christ, I'm glad you're all right. When this is done..."

  A voice from the seat behind interrupted him before he could finish.

  "You are awake, Nick? Good."

  It was a familiar voice, the voice he had heard in Cuba before he blacked out. Nick turned toward the speaker. A wave of dizziness rippled through him and was gone.