Castro's Daughter (45 page)

“I managed to get a relay from Cincinnati Center direct to Godman’s chief air traffic controller.”

“Can you get him back?”

“Yes, sir, but he won’t talk to you,” Darling said.

There’d been resistance—it was the only explanation McGarvey could think of. He and Martínez had discussed the possibility that the DI might embed agents in the crowd and once at Fort Knox might try to start some trouble. The real problems were how Martínez and his lieutenants would handle it and what the military response would be.

“Get me the president,” McGarvey said. “I’ll take it in the back.”

He went aft and sat down at the communications console, and waited until the call came through a couple of minutes later. The flight attendant had made himself scarce.

“Good evening, Mr. President. I think we may have a developing situation at Fort Knox.”

“We certainly have. There’s been gunfire and casualties, including Otto Rencke, a friend of yours, I believe. The army is on the verge of moving in and breaking up the crowd by force.”

For several long beats, McGarvey could feel his sanity slipping away, and he didn’t know how he could possibly bear another loss, and what would it do to Louise and to the baby they’d adopted? Or how he could keep from going on a killing rampage?

But then the aircraft’s interior came back in focus and he loosened his iron grip on the phone. “What’s his condition, sir?”

“I’m told a bullet grazed the side of his head, but other than headaches and some blurred vision for a day or two, he’ll be fine,” Langdon said. “Where are you?”

“In the air about two hours from Godman Air Field for which we’ve been denied clearance to land,” McGarvey said. The relief was sweet. “And apparently cell phone traffic has been blocked.”

“On General Bogan’s orders, he didn’t want the dissidents to coordinate any sort of an attack.”

“Exiles, sir,” McGarvey said. “I’d like to talk to him, three-way with you, Mr. President.”

“Would you mind explaining what the hell you have in mind?” Langdon demanded.

“It’ll be easier if I explain it to both of you at the same time, sir.”

“Just a minute,” the president said, and it was obvious he didn’t like being talked to this way.

A minute and a half later, the president was back. “General Bogan?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the general said. He sounded tense, and there was a lot of noise in the background—what sounded like radio traffic.

“Kirk McGarvey is on the line with us. He’s incoming in about two hours aboard a CIA aircraft, and he will be given clearance to land at Godman.”

“Sir, I can’t guarantee that he won’t receive ground fire.”

“Mr. McGarvey?” the president prompted.

“We’ll take our chances,” McGarvey said. “I’ll instruct my pilot. In the meantime, there’re a number of things that I need you to do for me, so that we can get through this night with no further casualties.”

The general started to object, but Langdon cut him off. “Mr. McGarvey is operating under my orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there any gunfire from the crowd at this moment?” McGarvey asked.

“Not for the past ten or fifteen minutes, and then only a single shot here and there.”

“Then it’s not an all-out assault.”

“No,” the general said.

“You will order your troops to stand by but not to open fire for any reason—any reason—other than to defend their own lives.”

“What if they storm the fence?”

“I’m hoping they’ll do something to get inside—in fact, I’m counting on it. But even if they actually reached the depository, there’s no chance they could get inside. At some point in the next two hours, I want all the lights cut, and under cover of darkness, I want the gate opened and the Mint Police manning it to go to the depository and wait inside.”

“Mr. President?” Bogan asked.

“You have your orders,” Langdon said tightly.

“And I want the cell phone network restored. The leader of the exile group has arranged lieutenants to keep the peace. Without communications, they cannot coordinate any effort to take out the embedded DI operatives.”

“Is there anything else, sir?” General Bogan asked briskly.

“The next part will be up to you, Mr. President,” McGarvey said.

“I’m listening.”

“You understand what’s at stake, so I want two things. From what I understand, it takes ten members of the depository staff to dial separate combinations to actually get into the vault area.”

“I don’t know that for a fact at the moment, but providing you are correct, what is it that you want?”

“Access to vault C at first light for me and one representative from the exiles.”

Bogan started to protest, but again the president cut him off. “For what purpose? What do you want?”

“Just to look, nothing more.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“And I want the media to be allowed access to the crowd immediately after we’ve seen the vault.”

“And then what?” Langdon asked.

“What we talked about will have a chance,” McGarvey said.

*   *   *

The area cell phone service was resorted ten minutes later, and McGarvey was able to reach Otto at the hospital near Fort Knox Headquarters.

“Oh, wow, I think I got lucky.”

“Sounds like you did. How do you feel?”

“Like a computer with a badass virus,” Otto said. “Are you close?”

“Less than two hours. Langdon’s going along with everything, so we’ll know by dawn.”

“I hope it’s there.”

“So do I,” McGarvey said. “Take care.”

He phoned Martínez, who answered on the second ring, all out of breath. “I hope this is Mac.”

“Two hours out with Langdon’s blessings. What’s your situation?”

“We just got cell phones back, and my guys are working the problem. We might have a half dozen live ones left. That many have already met with unfortunate accidents.”

“How about your people?”

“Our people,” Martínez corrected. “We’ve taken a few serious hits, but we’ve been at war long enough to understand casualties. And we brought a couple of doctors and several nurses with us, so we’re okay for now.”

“Listen up, because you’re going to stop being hunter killers, to hunter herders.” McGarvey said. “And this is what I have in mind.”

EIGHTY-TWO

General Bogan, a man with a very large, gruff voice and manner, turned out to be in his early forties, slightly built, mild looking, with thinning sand-colored hair and pale blue friendly eyes. He was standing on the tarmac dressed in sand-colorerd BDUs with two bodyguards beside a Hummer when the CIA Gulfstream pulled up to a halt, and the engines spooled down.

He came forward when the stairs opened and McGarvey thanked the crew and stepped down.

“McGarvey, you’ve for sure put our tits in a ringer.”

They shook hands. “Didn’t say this was going to be easy, General. What’s the situation?”

They headed to the Hummer, the bodyguards’ heads on swivels. “The media started descending right after your call,” Bogan said. “We’ve managed to hold them back with a little creative bullshit, but it won’t last.”

“I don’t expect it will,” McGarvey said. “What about gunfire?”

“About twenty minutes of it after we restored cell phone service, but since then it’s been quiet.”

When Mac had been coming in from the air, the lights surrounding the depository were like a necklace around a black hole. “Have the Mint Police at the gate gotten back to the building okay?”

“That’s the part that has us the most nervous,” Bogan said. “The guards got out of there okay, but less than ten minutes later, we spotted the infrared images of two men running down the access roads right up to the open gates.”

“Did they go inside?”

“No, they stopped at the guard post, and it looks as if they’re waiting for something or someone.”

“Me,” McGarvey said.

The Hummer headed to the depository.

“We can verify that at least one of them is armed.”

“They’ll both be carrying,” McGarvey said, checking the load and the silencer on his own pistol. When he looked up, the general was watching him. “They’re Cuban intelligence agents sent here to either disrupt the demonstration or somehow make their own claim. It’s what I was counting on.”

“Are there others in the crowd?”

“They’re all dead.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” McGarvey said. “Now I want you to get me as close as you can, I’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

“I’ll take you where your friend was shot,” Bogan said. “From inside the crowd. Wasn’t us.”

“I understand,” McGarvey said. “How about the depository officials with the combinations?”

“Four were inside the building when this started, five are standing by in an armored Hummer, and the tenth is being choppered down from Louisville International. Should be here within twenty minutes.”

“Hold them until I give the word.”

“You can reach my tactical cell phone,” Bogan said.

“Yes,” McGarvey said, and he phoned Martínez. “I’m in the Hummer approaching your position, is one of your docs standing by?”

“At the end of the access road, along with a couple of escorts. You sure you don’t want some backup?”

“They have to be twitchy by now, so this isn’t going to have much of a chance if I bring help.”

The Hummer pulled up beside the lead tank where Otto had been shot. “Once I give you the all clear, have the guys with the combinations sent in, but keep the media out until afterwards,” McGarvey told the general.

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll make an announcement, and the people will go home.”

“I meant the two at the gate. You’re going to kill them.”

“I just want to talk to them, and when the dust finally settles, I want them flown down to Guantánamo, where’re they’ll be released.”

“Jesus,” Bogan said, but then something came across his face as he finally caught a glimmering of what was actually going on. “Jesus,” he said again.

McGarvey got out of the Hummer and walked across the road to where Martínez was waiting for him by the bus at the edge of the crowd. The people had been told who he was and why he had come here, and they were happy now and smiling.

“You wearing a vest?” Martínez asked as they headed through the crowd toward the access road.

McGarvey shook his head. “They’re pros, so if it comes to that, they’ll go for head shots. It’ll be at nearly point-blank range, because I’m going to have to crowd them. It’s the only way I’ll have a chance of pulling it off.”

“Doesn’t have much of a chance anyway,” Martínez said. “You do know that.”

“We can’t live forever.”

“That’s supposed to be my line,
comp
. This is for Cuba. Should be me going in there, why you?”

“For Cuba,” McGarvey said. “Anyway, I want you guys to get the hell out of Miami and go home.”

Martínez laughed. “Where would the tourists go for go for a good cup of coffee?” he asked, and McGarvey laughed with him.

“Havana. I’ve always wanted to smoke a good cigar. Legally.”

They stopped at the access road. “Seriously, Mac, watch your ass. Those guys won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

“Neither will I,” McGarvey said. He took out his pistol and, holding it out of sight just behind his right leg, headed to the open gate and the guard post the length of a football field away.

About fifty feet from the inner fence, a DI operative stepped out from behind one of the concrete structures flanking the gate. He was holding what looked like a compact automatic weapon of some sort.

“Do you speak English?” McGarvey called out, not stopping.

“Yes.”

“The shooting is over, your associates are all dead. I’m here to talk.”

“We’ll talk to the newspapers and television.”

“First you have to talk to me. Do you know what happened in Texas?”

The Cuban was dark, with thick black hair, dressed in jeans and a denim jacket over a dark shirt, making him nearly invisible. “We heard.”

“The gold is here, not in Texas or New Mexico.”

“That is our understanding, señor,” the DI operative said. “Please stop where you are.”

McGarvey took a couple more steps before he stopped less than ten feet away from the man. “You’re here on behalf of your government to stake a claim. Which you have done. Now it’s time to go home.”

“We want to see it with our own eyes.”

“I’ve arranged for you and your partner, still hiding like a pansy, to have safe passage through the crowd to the army officer in charge of this installation.” He needed the second agent in plain view; otherwise, if there was a shoot-out he’d be at a sharp disadvantage.

The other operative, also armed with what McGarvey recognized was a silenced MAC 10, the same as the weapon the DI had been equipped with at Fort Bliss, stepped into view. “Never happen, you
bastardo.
”

“Nevertheless, it’s the only way you’ll get out of here alive.”

“Hijo de puta!”
the man shouted, and he raised his weapon.

McGarvey shot him in the forehead, driving his body backwards, bouncing off the concrete structure, dead before he hit the pavement.

The other operative raised his weapon at the same moment McGarvey switched aim to him. But the man hesitated.

“Believe me, I do not want to kill you, but if I must I will,” McGarvey said.
“Comprende?”

The Cuban said nothing. He was tense but not out of control.

“I want you to return to Havana to make your report that the gold has been found. The Cuban government can make its claim, just as the people here tonight are making theirs.”

The agent looked beyond McGarvey to the crowd. “They’ll never let me pass.”

“The military will escort you to their airstrip here, from where you’ll be flown to Cuba.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” McGarvey said, but he was close enough to see the tightening muscles around the man’s eyes and mouth.

The operative shouted something in Spanish, but an instant before he pulled the trigger, McGarvey fired one shot, catching him in the right kneecap, knocking him down, the MAC 10 firing into the sky, the thirty-round magazine empty in under two seconds.