“I said the range is more than sufficient to get to South Florida. And, since you’ll never let me leave the United States, there is no reason to be concerned about getting back to Cuba, now, is there?”
“Why would you think I’m not going to let you out of the States?”
Polanco had been bent over, studying something on the body of the chopper. He stretched up to his full height and gazed down at Tracie through scornful eyes. “It will be a huge boost to the career of the CIA agent who delivers General Antonio Polanco to the United States government. Do not try to convince me that such a boost does not appeal to you.”
“What makes you think I’m CIA?”
“Please,” Polanco said. “Do not insult me. I have spent a lifetime fighting for my country and against Americans just like you, people committed to bringing down my government. I know CIA when I see it.”
Tracie shrugged. “Think what you want,” she said. “But don’t pretend to know what does or doesn’t appeal to me. It just so happens that I believe you when you say neither you nor your people are responsible for the NCC murders. If I didn’t believe you, you would be correct in assuming you’d never get out of the U.S. alive.
“But as things stand now,” she continued, spreading her hands in a conciliatory gesture, “if you get me to Florida and back onto United States soil, I have no reason to interfere with you lifting back off and returning to Cuba.”
Polanco stood motionless, his eyes narrowed to slits. It was obvious he wanted to believe her, but the idea that a representative of the United States government would allow a Big Fish from an enemy to escape once they had that Big Fish in their clutches was so foreign to him that he couldn’t quite bring himself to accept it.
Tracie gestured with her gun at the helicopter. “Move it along,” she said. “Because if you don’t get me to the States, all bets are off and you’ll end up buried at sea with two 9mm slugs in your head. Your buddy Castro will never know what happened to you.”
Polanco grunted angrily and returned to his preflight preparations. After a moment he turned to her and said gruffly, “Sí.”
She shook her head in confusion. “Yes? Yes what?”
“Sí, this Bell Jet Ranger carries enough fuel for a round trip to South Florida and back. Barely.”
“Speaking of which,” Trace said, scratching her head. “I don’t see any way of refueling. How are you going to gas this thing up?”
“I refuel at San Antonio de los Baños Airfield when necessary. It is a just short flight from here, and I filled up before returning home after my last trip. The tank is almost completely full.”
She couldn’t imagine Polanco would have anything to gain by lying, so she took him at his word. He finished his preflight inspection—no easy task in the darkness, even under the ambient light of the moon and stars—and quickly unsnapped the four cables keeping the chopper moored to the pad.
Then he opened a surprisingly flimsy-looking door and gestured her inside. Tracie had the absurd vision of a chivalrous high school boy opening the car door for his prom date. This was no date, though, and of all the potential descriptions she could think of for General Antonio Polanco, “chivalrous” would be nowhere on the list.
She gestured with her gun. “You first,” she said.
The general shrugged and turned toward the helicopter and Tracie said, “General!” Her voice was harsh and it stopped the Cuban in his tracks. “I’m sure you have a weapon or two stashed in there somewhere. Keep your hands where I can see them. If you make a single move I don’t like, you’ll be dead before you hear the gunshot, do you understand?”
Polanco turned. His voice was quiet but cold when he spoke. “If you kill me, you will never get off this island.”
“And you’ll still be dead,” Tracie said without hesitation.
It looked as though the general was poised to say more, but he bit the words off and turned back toward the Jet Ranger. He clambered into the cabin, his big body seeming to fold in upon itself as he squeezed through the doorway. He made sure to keep his hands in plain sight, though, and the moment he forced his bulk inside, Tracie followed, gun trained steadily on the big man’s body.
Inside, the Bell helicopter seemed even smaller than it had looked from the outside. Polanco had settled into the pilot’s seat and was already busying himself reading gauges, flipping switches and turning knobs as Tracie closed and latched the door behind her.
A bench seat that looked like it belonged in the back of a station wagon took up virtually the entire interior of the chopper behind the pilot’s chair. It was big enough to hold two adults comfortably. Maybe three if they weren’t the size of Polanco or didn’t mind being stuffed inside the helicopter like sardines.
Tracie considered climbing into the back but knew that to keep an eye on Polanco, she needed to be seated next to him. The general seemed to have picked up his preflight pace considerably, and was prepping for departure with an urgency that had been missing until now.
She eased into her seat and reached for her safety harness as the Jet Ranger’s engine fired up with a high-pitched whine. The rotors began spinning, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. And then they were airborne, the Jet Ranger gaining altitude at a breathtaking rate, much faster than Tracie had expected.
She gasped and slapped the seatbelt’s buckle at its receptacle.
Missed.
Then the little chopper began shifting, turning onto its side as it hovered perhaps one hundred feet directly above the back yard landing pad. Polanco maneuvered the collective expertly and Tracie felt her weight shifting and she knew he was performing the abrupt maneuvers intentionally, trying to dump her out of her seat and jar her gun loose.
The pitch-black Atlantic rotated through forty-five degrees out the windscreen, seeming to turn sideways, and she knew she had one more shot at getting her safety harness buckled before she tumbled into the door, the flimsy piece of sheet metal on hinges that would be the only thing standing between her and a terrifying fall to her death.
She stabbed the buckle at the receptacle again, now barely able to control her rising panic.
It locked into place with a satisfying metallic click.
And then she was hanging sideways, the harness holding her in her seat.
She twisted toward the general and raised her Beretta, now aiming not at center mass but at Polanco’s head. “Straighten this thing out, now, or you’ll die where you sit!” she screamed.
The helicopter seemed to hesitate for just a moment, as if Polanco couldn’t decide whether she meant what she said, and then they were once again hovering in an upright position above the general’s property.
“Move,” Tracie said. “Now. Get going toward the Florida coast.” She could barely contain her anger and her fear and her racing pulse, and she was half-tempted to put a bullet in Polanco’s head as payback for his terrifying stunt, consequences be damned.
He said nothing, just maneuvered the controls with lips compressed into a tight slash. The chopper accelerated relatively smoothly—at least, smoothly compared to the violent pitches and rolls Polanco had just put the little craft through—and then they were churning forward, the dim lights of Cuba receding steadily into the distance. Soon the lights disappeared and the helicopter was alone, suspended over the massive black expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
22
The sky was lightening noticeably when the South Florida coast began to come into view. High, thin clouds streaked with pink and purple stretched out over the endless Atlantic, and the impending sunrise made Tracie even more anxious to get on the ground.
The chopper moved forward, their progress feeling agonizingly slow despite the fact Polanco told her they were traveling at nearly one hundred fifty miles per hour.
She thought about air traffic control and the limits of ATC radar coverage, wondered what controllers might think seeing one lone target approaching the U.S. coastline from the south. The chopper was very low, skimming
over the wave tops, presumably staying under the radar, but who knew?
This was exactly the tactic drug-runners used when bringing shipments to the mainland, and she guessed radar coverage was on Polanco’s mind as well. And while the prospect of being greeted by law enforcement or even military fighter jet interceptors held a certain reassuring appeal, Tracie knew that if that happened, the resulting attention, and the pointed questions about why she was in the company of a top Cuban Communist general—questions she could not possibly answer to the satisfaction of the authorities—would blow her mission completely out of the water, and likely end her career.
She glanced across the small cabin at the pilot and wondered what was going through his mind. As risky as this daybreak incursion into the United States was for her, it was much more so for him. Unlike earlier, when Polanco had been almost jovial, conversation had been sporadic over the nearly ninety-minute flight; it seemed the potential of capture by his enemy was limiting his interest in small talk.
Her eyes were beginning to droop as exhaustion, along with the effects of stress and adrenaline, began to take their toll. The helicopter buzzed along, the sound of the rotors combining with the motion of the aircraft to remind her how tired she was, and how much she needed sleep.
When Polanco spoke, Tracie’s eyes popped open and she realized she had been about to doze off. Thank God the general picked the right time to open his mouth, she thought, her heart now pounding madly. Two more minutes and he could have unsnapped the safety harness, opened the door and rolled me into the ocean before I had a clue what was happening.
She cleared her throat in an attempt to steady her nerves. And her voice. “I’m sorry, I missed that. What did you say?”
“I said how are we going to do this? What is your plan?”
“Come on, General, get real, there’s no plan. I’m making this up as I go, remember?”
Polanco grunted. Tracie didn’t catch what he said, but she didn’t really need to. It was obvious the general expected to be caught at any moment, and probably tried and executed before noon.
Good.
Fear could be a good motivator and it was important that Polanco stay focused, at least until Tracie was on the ground and free. After that he was on his own, and while she had no particular interest in seeing the general captured, it wouldn’t break her heart, either, especially after the stunt he pulled right after they had gotten airborne.
His question was a legitimate one, though, and Tracie spent a few minutes pondering it. She realized she had no idea where they were. They had been skirting the Florida Keys for quite some time, but the Keys stretched for miles, thrusting into the Atlantic like a bony, misshapen finger.
Finally she spoke. “It’s not like we have many options,” she said. “We’ll stay far enough offshore that anyone who spots us will hopefully not be able to read your tail number and realize it isn’t U.S. registration. Then, when I see what looks like a secluded section of beach, we’ll head straight for it. You’ll put this thing on the ground, I’ll hop out and you can be back in the air and headed for Havana in a matter of seconds.”
He didn’t answer and Tracie was glad. She wasn’t interested in his opinion.
As crowded as she imagined the Florida Keys being, Tracie had begun to doubt her “plan” even as she spoke the words. But she was surprised to discover that much of the coastline they were passing seemed to be deserted.
It didn’t escape Polanco’s attention, either. “You know,” he said. “If I am going to have enough fuel to make it back to Cuba, I must turn around soon. This round-trip flight is close to the very limits of the helicopter’s range and I have little desire to drop into the sea five kilometers from home.”
Tracie was quiet for a moment. She checked her watch. It was almost six a.m. Now was the time to make a run for the beach if they were going to; any delay and the likelihood of running into early-rising beachcombers rose dramatically.
She lifted her binocs to her eyes using her left hand only. In her right she was careful to keep her weapon trained squarely on the pilot. Polanco had proven himself to be a quick thinker and a dangerous opponent, and she had no doubt he would take advantage of any opening if he saw one.
Off in the distance the shoreline continued to slide past along the left side of the Jet Ranger. While it was difficult to see clearly—using just one hand to steady the glasses was a challenge, given the steady vibration of the chopper and their one-hundred-fifty mile per hour speed—Tracie became convinced that the stretch of beach due west of them was as good a potential landing spot as they were likely to find: the shoreline was secluded and shielded by a thick palm grove, but a decent-sized town was visible in the distance just a couple of miles away. Whether that town was Marathon or Islamorada or Key Largo she had no idea, but it looked large enough to support at least one car rental agency, which was what she would need.
The clock was ticking.
“Okay,” she said, lowering the glasses and nodding in the direction of the shoreline. “Let’s do it.”
Polanco didn’t bother answering. He turned the bird and advanced toward the beach at full power. As the shoreline rushed up to meet them, Tracie could see they had chosen a decent spot to put down. The immediate area looked deserted.
For now.
The Jet Ranger crossed over the strip of beach and continued on. Tracie was about to ask Polanco what the hell he thought he was doing, but then it became clear. He brought their forward motion to a stop, then hovered for a moment and eased onto a grassy clearing between the beach and the trees. The landing was as smooth and uneventful as any she had ever experienced in a fixed-wing airplane.
The skids had no sooner touched the ground than Polanco turned in his seat. He fixed her with a glare and said, “I did what you asked, now get out.”
“Gladly,” Tracie shot back. She had dropped her binoculars into her backpack as they approached the shoreline, and now she grabbed the pack and unlatched the door. She swung it open and dropped to the ground, conscious of the lethal rotors slicing the air just above her head.
She ducked low and moved toward the trees, anxious to get out of here but well aware of how dangerous Polanco was. She hadn’t forgotten her earlier concern about the general having weapons stashed somewhere on board his chopper, and to protect against that possibility, she moved sideways away from the Jet Ranger, keeping her gun aimed in the general direction of the pilot.
By landing on the grass, the general had minimized the amount of sand being kicked up by the rotors, but he had not entirely eliminated it. Flying grains pelted her face and bit into exposed skin like a thousand stinging bees. Tracie shielded her eyes as best she could and abandoned the notion of training her gun on the chopper. The moment she was out of range of the deadly rotor blades, she sprinted for the cover of a palm grove in the distance.
Behind her the Jet Ranger’s engine whined and its blades began biting the air again in earnest. The chopper rose into the sky in a cloud of choking sand, and as she reached the trees, she turned to watch its progress. Polanco had already pivoted the aircraft on its axis and was even now adding power, putting distance between himself and the enemy state as quickly as he could.
Tracie watched the helicopter grow smaller and smaller in the early-morning sky, until eventually it disappeared and she was alone.
23
Juan Gonzalez glanced up from behind his desk with a scowl as Maria Carranco entered the office and closed the door softly behind her.
It hadn’t been easy locating this particular member of Omega 7. Although she was technically a member of his own household, living in her own wing in his sprawling mansion, she was also an unstable loner who sometimes disappeared for weeks at a time into her retreat in the Everglades. Juan had been to the rickety cabin once and vowed never to return.
For all her flaws, though, Maria’s dedication to Omega 7 could not be questioned. The organization consisted of a loose amalgamation of members, most Cuban-born
expatriates who had been forced out of their country during, or immediately following, the Communist revolution. All were dedicated to the overthrow of the Castro government, but some—like Maria—were willing to go to much greater lengths in working toward that goal than others.
Omega 7 had been classified a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, the result of a string of pipe bomb attacks—and assorted other disruptive activities—aimed at intimidating backers of the Castro regime here in the states. The goal of the attacks was to convince Castro apologists that supporting the Communist government did not come without risks.
Gonzalez knew the “terrorist” label was bullshit, of course. He and all of Omega 7 were fighting a war to regain a country that had been stolen out from under them by an illegitimate regime. They were no more “terrorists” than the Minutemen had been in the U.S.’s own Revolutionary War. Freedom fighters, that’s what Omega 7 should be classified as, heroes even, and if the FBI and the Justice Department couldn’t see that, then that was their problem, not his.
But the “terrorist” designation did present more than a few difficulties when it came to administering the organization. Maintaining absolute secrecy was essential, as was retaining control—not always an easy task—over the activities of Omega 7. Every action they took must be carefully considered and planned, because every move they made could be the last thing they ever did. The possibility of an FBI raid that would render Omega 7 extinct hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles.
Which was exactly why Juan Gonzalez was so angry with Maria Carranco. The young woman was technically a U.S. citizen, born here in Miami mere months after her father’s death during the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. She carried a white-hot resentment, just as most victims of the Castro revolution did.
But hers went far beyond the typical hatred of Castro that burned inside so many dispossessed Cubans, including Juan Gonzalez. Maria blamed the United States for the death of the father she had never met, believing the U.S. government had misled the Cuban freedom fighters during that disastrous invasion twenty-six years ago. She felt—as did many Cubans—that the rebels had been promised more support than the U.S. government was willing to deliver, and that the United States had abandoned the men when the fighting became too intense and the tide of battle began to turn against them.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 62
