Cuban Death-Lift (22 page)

 

And then followed the number of a post office box which I was to give to my superior; the box contained, Androsa wrote, a list of secret information she had given the Cubans.

Sweat rolled down my nose and plopped onto the paper. I got another beer and sat down at the little galley booth. Mosquitoes had found my hiding place in the mangroves, and I swatted at them absently while rereading the letter, letting the woman I had loved and lost shed light on the past mysteries of Mariel.

But I hadn't truly lost her. Not yet. I finished puzzling over the strange wording of the letter's last sentence, then hid it away and turned my attention to drawing a good map of the terrain around the Naval Academy. I had already lost one of the rare people to “the stout wind.” I wasn't about to lose another one.

So don the armor, MacMorgan. In days of yore it would be breastplate and plumed helmet and a two-handed sword forged from Spanish steel. Those were the days for you and the dead Irishman, MacMorgan; times when a man could set out on a good horse to right wrongs, slay the dragon, and do honorable battle with windmills and adversaries alike.

But now the armor is nothing more than the wellloved black Navy watch sweater, the lucky British commando knickers, and the face shadow from the olive-drab Special Forces tube. The sword is the waterproof knapsack on your back with its deadly cargo of RDX explosives and plenty of extra shafts for the Cobra crossbow slung over your shoulder. And the white steed is nothing more than your own good legs or, in a pinch, the Dacor TX-1000 competition fins you carry just in case. . . .

Strange thoughts as I moved through the black marsh below the cane fields and the small village at the southern point of Mariel Harbor. Flashbacks and the haunting rush of
déjà vu: You have been here before, MacMorgan, for now and all time because this is what you do best and, deep in your brain, love most—the stalking of an enemy, like all warriors before and those to come. . . .

I forced my mind clear. I was getting sloppy, letting my thoughts rove. I had been lucky so far. Everything had gone smoothly. Almost frighteningly smoothly.

I had worked my way cross-country from the tidal creek where
Sniper
was hidden to the backside of the peninsula with the little military outpost and amphibious landing strip and air tower. From a clump of bushes I had watched the soldiers walk the beach, ducking back into my cover with every sweep of the big searchlight. The beach was well fortified with bunkers and machine guns—but they didn't expect an attack from the mainland.

And so it was easy for me.

I had moved undetected through the rear of the encampment. Was close enough to one barracks to watch the off-duty soldiers laughing and smoking within the lighted window, planted quarter blocks of the RDX well behind the barracks, then added a half block at the foundation of the squat blue air tower. No mass slaughter, this—just enough explosives to bring the control tower toppling and to turn the night sky to bright day, but not close enough to do more than throw the soldiers unhurt from their bunks.

I had no desire—or reason—to kill hundreds. Just wanted to get their attention so I could steal the lady back. But if someone got in my way . . .

So I had moved south through the night, down the west coast of the harbor. The American boats of the Freedom Flotilla rested at calm anchor, throwing white starpaths across the water with their cabin lights. Two thousand boats filled with desperate waiting people, ironically serene in the harbor—none of them knowing what was about to happen.

The marshland broke into firmer slough, and I made my way through the chest-high grass to the embankment where the dirt road began its twisting run up the cliff to the Naval Academy. I saw the flickering light of an approaching motorcycle and dove back into the grass until the rider was well out of sight.

The road would be the quickest route, but probably the most dangerous. So I hustled across the road and . . . and stopped dead in my tracks. I hadn't seen the soldier in the shadows by the tree. He was doing something. And then I realized: urinating. So I was right—the road was guarded. I dropped down onto my belly, feeling warm ditchwater seep through the wool watch sweater. He zipped up his pants, turned toward me. And just as I was about to rush him, cold steel of Randall attack-survival knife a good weight in right hand, the guard suddenly yelled and jumped back. I ducked at the first explosion of his automatic rifle, knowing that I had been seen and that I was a dead man. But the fire stopped abruptly. I watched the guard switch on a flashlight, reach down, and pick up a water moccasin as thick as my arm. Down the road, other guards were yelling, asking just what in the hell was going on. The soldier with the snake went lumbering down the road to show them.

I had no choice now. The dark thrust of wilderness before me was the only safe way to the stone castle atop the cliff. So climb it, MacMorgan. Hear the tranquil irony of owls calling and coons foraging through the brush while you pull yourself from tree to tree on a quarter-mile forty-degree grade and hope the woman is up there as she is supposed to be, and hope the dragon is somewhere nearby. . . .

 

Captain Lobo hadn't lied about the cottage. It was made of wood and roofed with tile, and it was very pleasant indeed. It was located in a clearing with other cottages—all billets, probably, for the Naval Academy students. But strangely, all the other cottages were empty, dark. It didn't make any sense. I rested in a clump of bamboo thinking. Too little sign of students, and a damn sight too many guards around the four-story stone block hulk of Academy. Maybe they had evacuated the students because of the influx of Americans to Mariel. But why?

Things had gone too smoothly. Emerson wrote about the one perfect law: compensation. Now the scale would swing back, because this part of my little journey would be deadly as hell. Twice I had almost been detected by guards on my approach to the string of cottages. One soldier had stood close enough for me to smell the sweat on his shirt. I could have killed either of them, but that would have ruined everything. I wasn't ready. Not yet.

I stayed in the shadows pulling myself along on my belly. Below, the searchlight from Pier Three scanned back and forth, painting the boats and the harbor in a stark white light. I took a final look through the window of the cottage and saw what I had hoped to see: Androsa Santarun, looking oddly more beautiful for her weariness, sitting in a straight-back chair leafing through a magazine. Captain Zapata sat across from her, AK-47 on his thin legs, watching her with a leer of unmistakable intent in his eyes. The massive bulk of General Halcón paced back and forth across the bare wooden floor, chain-smoking.

I worked my way to the drive which led down to the road. I RDX'ed the poles holding power terminals, located the three droplines which ran to telephones within the academy, and carefully cut one side of each line. If there was an incoming call, people inside could hear—but not be heard. And they could call out—but not be heard. Nothing suspicious about that. Phone trouble is the common complaint of the world. The main radio tower for the academy was down the road and up a bluff. I went unbothered cross country and taped the final half block of the explosive to that.

I waited a long time before crawling across the clearing to the cottage again. One hundred yards away, I could see the dim shapes of the guards moving about the perimeter of the stone academy. Small orange eyes of their cigarettes glowed occasionally in the darkness. A broad third-floor window was lighted. Music filtered from it: the intricate intersectings of a J.S. Bach fugue, the harpsicord music seeming incongruous with the setting. A brown shade was pulled the length of the window, and against that scrim two men stood in silhouette.

And when I saw the silhouettes, I stopped. Electrified.

My breath coming harsh and shallow, I watched the two men against the backlighted window. Even at that distance their silhouettes were unmistakable. One was the Hitchcock-like mass of General Halcón. He had obviously left the cottage and gone into the academy while I made my rounds. His head was bowed slightly, jowls hanging. He said nothing, only shrugged occasionally. The other man was doing all the talking. He had a long ragged beard like some dark prophet. Surprisingly, he did not wear the familiar field cap. But the long Cohiva cigar was there, and he used it to gesture as he spoke with great animation.

It was Fidel Castro.

As if in a trance, I felt my hands remove the sling of the Cobra crossbow. I mounted one of the aluminum shafts with the triangular killing point, then used the self-cocking slide to arm it. With deadly calm hands, I lined up the custom-built sights on the expanse of window, zeroing in on the dot between head and beard. If I pulled the trigger, the arrow would cover the hundred-yard distance in just under one second. It would burst through the glass like a .357 slug through tissue paper, and probably exit on the other side of Castro's temple.

But I didn't pull the trigger.

I couldn't. It was just the childish termination of the hunter sighting the forbidden game; the culmination of some macabre force within me that demanded all but the final step. And I thought:

A sound nearby made me lower the crossbow—a heavy rustle of bushes between me, and the window where the dictator still lectured Halcón. I watched the bushes tremble slightly, then stop. I waited, wondering if a guard and a machine gun might be positioned within the clump of foliage.

But then I could wait no more.

I had to move and move fast. I knew my plan was sound. There would be no trouble killing the woman's guard—or guards—quickly and noiselessly. And with the RDX planted at broad intervals around the southern mainland perimeter of the harbor, the massive series of explosions would draw most—if not all—soldiers and armaments outward, leaving us a clear escape route across the harbor. And once the blast went off, the Naval Academy would be without lights or radio communication. And you could bet, with Castro there, the whole damn Cuban army would be moving in to defend it like hornets heading for a trampled nest.

So I crawled on hands and belly, crossbow ready, along the hedge of the cottage. Carefully, I edged one eye over the ledge of window—and saw nothing. Staying in the shadows, I moved around to the door, cracked it, then swung it open.

The woman was gone, all right.

But her guard wasn't.

Poor Captain Zapata had suffered the final indignity. He lay bleeding on the floor, horribly cut. Androsa's blouse rested in shreds upon the bed. A chair was overturned. The scenario became grimly clear: a beautiful woman alone with the scorned soldier, so he had tried to take her. And she had been lucky enough to find a way to fight back—his own knife, probably. So she had ruined him; killed him as he deserved to be killed, took his rifle and escaped. . . .

And suddenly the realization of what she would do next moved through me like a drug. The rustling in the bushes . . . and her promise to atone for the death of her brother, the murder of the three CIA agents, and her two years as a double agent. I didn't wait to move cautiously now. I threw myself away from the corpse of Zapata and the cottage, running fast, running low, headed for the clump of bushes which I knew sheltered Androsa Santarun.

But I was too late.

Just as I was about to dive for her, the AK-47 rattled orange flame, and beyond the window, the massive head of General Halcón disappeared like a bad dream while the silhouette of the dictator hesitated, then dove to safety.

I heard the screams of the guards and the sound of heavy footsteps running. I pulled her roughly out of the bushes. She was crying, sobbing hysterically.

“Androsa, Androsa, are you hurt . . . ?”

The guards were coming closer now. Somewhere someone fired wildly into the night.

“Androsa, are you all right?”

“I couldn't do it, Dusky, I couldn't. I had the gun on him but I couldn't—”

“Androsa, dammit, you did do it—Halcón's dead. Now we have to get the hell out of here.”

Lights flared on all across the clearing. A guard running toward the cottage saw us, stopped, then swiveled to fire. I shoved myself down on top of her and took him cleanly with the Cobra, one gleaming arrow through the chest.

More soldiers were coming now. A siren blared. I took the remote-control detonator from my pocket and thumped back the cover.

It was now or never. I pulled Androsa down behind me into the cover of the wilderness mountainside. My foot hit something in the darkness and we both went tumbling into the safety of a gulley. Her face was hot and wet as I pulled her close against my chest. Still she sobbed, pouring out some strange confession that I couldn't quite comprehend and, finally, couldn't let myself believe.

“. . . I . . . I wanted to kill him so badly, but back on the Isla de Pinos, when he was hiding in the mountains there—”