Cyclops

by Clive Cussler

  "The last is a phony front set up by the KGB," said Hagen. "They'll claim the Cuban exiles are an arm of the CIA, making us the villains of the destruction. There won't be a nation in the world who will believe our noninvolvement."

  "A sound plan," said Clark. "They'd hardly use one of their own vessels to carry the bomb."

  "Yes, but why destroy two ships and their cargoes for no purpose?" asked Pitt.

  "I admit it doesn't add up."

  "Ships' names and cargoes?"

  Clark extracted another page from the document and quoted from it. "The Ozero Zaysan, Soviet cargo ship carrying military supplies and equipment. The Ozero Baykai, a 200,000-ton oil tanker. The bogus Cuban-operated ship is the Amy Bigalow, bulk carrier with a cargo of 25,000 tons of ammonium nitrate."

  Pitt stared at the ceiling as if mesmerized. "The oil tanker, is she the one moored across the bay?"

  "Yes, at the oil refinery."

  "Have any of the cargoes been unloaded?"

  Clark shook his head. "There has been no activity around the two cargo carriers, and the tanker still sits low in the water."

  Pitt sat down again and gave the other two men in the room a cold, hard stare. "Gentlemen, you've been had."

  Clark looked at Pitt in dark speculation. "What are you talking about?"

  "You overestimated the Russians' grandstand tactics and underestimated their cunning," said Pitt.

  "There is no nuclear bomb on any of those ships. For what they plan to do, they don't need one."

  <<66>>

  Colonel General Viktor Kolchak, chief of the fifteen thousand Soviet military forces and advisers based on Cuban soil, came from behind his desk and embraced Velikov warmly.

  "General, you don't know how glad I am to see you alive."

  "The feeling is mutual, Colonel General," said Velikov, returning Kolchak's bear hug.

  "Sit down, sit down, we have much to discuss. Whoever was behind the destruction of our island surveillance facility will pay. A communication from President Antonov assures me he will not take this outrage sitting down."

  "No one agrees more than me," said Velikov. "But we have another urgent matter to discuss."

  "Care for a glass of vodka?"

  "I can do without," Velikov replied brusquely. "Rum and Cola takes place tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. Are your preparations complete?"

  Kolchak poured a small shot of vodka for himself. "Soviet officials and our Cuban friends are discreetly slipping out of the city in small groups. Most of my military forces have already left to begin sham maneuvers forty miles away. By dawn, all personnel, equipment, and important documents will have been quietly evacuated."

  "Leave some behind," Velikov said casually.

  Kolchak peered over his rimless glasses like a grandmother hearing a four-letter word from a child.

  "Leave what behind, General?"

  Velikov brushed off the derisive look. "Fifty Soviet civilian personnel, wives and families, and two hundred of your military forces."

  "Do you know what you're asking?"

  "Precisely. We cannot lay blame on the CIA for a hundred thousand deaths without suffering casualties ourselves. Russians dying beside Cubans. We'll reap propaganda rewards that will go far in smoothing the path for our new government."

  "I can't bring myself to throw away the lives of two hundred and fifty countrymen."

  "Conscience never bothered your father when he cleared German mine fields by marching his men over them."

  "That was war."

  "Only the enemy has changed," Velikov said coldly. "We have been at war with the United States since 1945. The cost in lives is small compared to increasing our hold in the Western Hemisphere. There is no room for argument, General. You will be expected to do your duty."

  "I don't need the KGB lecturing me on my duty to the motherland," Kolchak said without rancor.

  Velikov shrugged indifferently. "We all do our part. Getting back to Rum and Cola-- after the explosion your troops will return to the city and assist in medical and relief operations. My people will oversee the orderly transition of government. I'll also arrange for international press coverage showing benevolent Soviet soldiers caring for the injured survivors."

  "As a soldier I have to say I find this entire operation abhorrent. I can't believe Comrade Antonov is a party to it."

  "His reasons are valid, and I for one do not question them."

  Kolchak leaned against the edge of his desk, his shoulders sagging. "I'll have a list made up of those who will stay."

  "Thank you, Colonel General."

  "I assume all preparations are complete?"

  Velikov nodded. "You and I will accompany the Castro brothers to the parade reviewing stand. I will be carrying a pocket transmitter that will detonate the explosives in the primary ship. When Castro begins his usual marathon speech, we will make an unobtrusive exit to a waiting staff car. Once we are safely out of range-- allowing about thirty minutes to drive fifteen miles-- I'll activate the signal and the blast will follow."

  "How do we explain our miraculous escape?" Kolchak asked sarcastically.

  "First reports will have us dead and missing. Later, we'll be discovered among the injured."

  "How badly injured?"

  "Just enough to look convincing. Torn uniforms, a little blood, and some artificial wounds covered by bandages."

  "Like two hooligans who vandalized the dressing rooms of a theater."

  "Hardly the metaphor that comes to mind."

  Kolchak turned and sadly looked out the window of his headquarters over the busy city of Havana.

  "Impossible to believe that tomorrow at this time," he said in a morbid tone, "all this will be a smoldering, twisted sea of misery and death."

  The President worked at his desk late. Nothing was cut-and-dried, black or white. The job of Chief Executive was one compromise after another. His wins over Congress were diluted by tacked-on amendments, his foreign policies picked apart by world leaders until little remained of the original proposals. Now he was trying to save the life of a man who had viewed the United States as his number one enemy for thirty years. He wondered what difference any of it would make two hundred years from now.

  Dan Fawcett walked in with a pot of coffee and sandwiches. "The Oval Office never sleeps," he said with forced cheerfulness. "Your favorite, tuna with bacon." He offered the President a plate and then poured the coffee. "Can I help you with anything?"

  "No thanks, Dan. Just editing my speech for tomorrow's news conference."

  "I can't wait to see the faces of the press corps when you lay the existence of the moon colony on them, and then introduce Steinmetz and his people. I previewed some of the videotapes they brought back of their lunar experiments. They're incredible."

  The President set the sandwich aside and thoughtfully sipped the coffee. "The world is upside down."

  Fawcett paused in midbite. "Pardon?"

  "Think of the terrible incongruity. I'll be informing the world of man's greatest modern achievement at the same time that Havana is being blown off the map."

  "Any late word from Brogan since Pitt and Jessie LeBaron popped up at our Special Interests Section?"

  "Not in the past hour. He's keeping a vigil at his office too."

  "How in the world did they ever manage it?"

  "Two hundred miles through a hostile nation. Beats me."

  The direct phone line to Langley rang. "Yes."

  "Martin Brogan, Mr. President. Havana reports that searchers have not yet detected a positive radioactive reading in any of the ships."

  "Did they get on board?"

  "Negative. Security is too heavy. They can only drive by the two ships tied to the docks. The other one, an oil tanker, is moored in the bay. They circled it in a small boat."

  "What are you telling me, Martin? The bomb was unloaded and hidden in the city?"

  "The ships have been under tight surveillance since arriving in the harbor. No cargo has come off
."

  "Maybe the radiation can't leak through the steel hulls of the ships."

  "The experts at Los Alamos assure me it can. The problem is our people in Havana are not professional radiation experts. They're also hamstrung having to use commercial Geiger counters that aren't sensitive enough to measure a light reading."

  "Why didn't we get qualified experts with the right equipment in there?" the President demanded.

  "It's one thing to send in one man on a diplomatic mission with a small suitcase like your friend Hagen.

  It's something else to smuggle a team with five hundred pounds of electronic equipment. If we had more time, something might have been arranged. Covert boat landings and parachute drops stand little chance through Cuba's defense screen. Smuggling by ship is the best method, but we're talking at least a month's preparation."

  "You make it sound like we're a guy with an unknown disease and no known cure."

  "That about sums it up, Mr. President," said Brogan. "About all we can do is sit and wait. . . and watch it happen."

  "No, I won't have that. In the name of humanity we have to do something. We can't let all those people die." He paused, feeling a knot growing in his stomach. "God, I can't believe the Russians will actually set off a nuclear bomb in a city. Doesn't Antonov realize he's plunging us deeper into a morass there can be no backing out of?"

  "Believe me, Mr. President, our analysts have run every conceivable contingency through computers.

  There is no easy answer. Asking the Cubans to evacuate the city through our radio networks will accomplish nothing. They'll simply ignore any warnings coming from us.

  "There is still hope Ira Hagen can get to Castro in time."

  "Do you really think Fidel will take Hagen at face value? Not very likely. He'll think it's only a plot to discredit him. I'm sorry, Mr. President, we have to steel ourselves against the disaster, because there isn't a damned thing we can do about it."

  The President wasn't listening anymore. His face reflected grim despair. We put a colony on the moon, he thought, and yet the world's inhabitants still insist on murdering each other for asinine reasons.

  "I'm calling a cabinet meeting tomorrow early, before the moon colony announcement," he said in a defeated voice. "We'll have to create a plan to counter Soviet and Cuban accusations of guilt and pick up the pieces as best we can."

  <<67>>

  Leaving the Swiss embassy was ridiculously easy. A tunnel had been dug twenty years before that dropped over a hundred feet below the streets and sewer pipes, far beneath any shafts Cuban security people might have sunk around the block. The walls were sealed to keep out water, but silent pumps were kept busy draining away the seepage.

  Clark led Pitt down a long ladder to the bottom, and then through a passage that ran for nearly two city blocks before ending at a shaft. They climbed up and emerged in a fitting room of a women's dress shop.

  The shop had closed six hours earlier and the window displays effectively blocked any view of the interior. Sitting in the storeroom were three exhausted, haggard-looking men who gave barely a sign of recognition to Clark as he entered with Pitt.

  "No need to know real names," said Clark. "May I present Manny, Moe, and Jack."

  Manny, a huge black with a deeply trenched face, wearing an old faded green shirt and khaki trousers, lit a cigarette and merely glanced at Pitt with world-weary detachment. He looked like a man who had experienced the worst of life and had no illusions left.

  Moe was peering through spectacles at a Russian phrase book. He wore the image of an academic--

  lost expression, unruly hair, neatly sculptured beard. He silently nodded and gave an offhand smile.

  Jack was the stereotype Latin out of a 1930s movie-- flashing eyes, compact build, fireworks teeth, triangular moustache. All he was missing was a bongo drum. He gave the only words of recognition.

  "Hola, Thomas. Come to pep-talk the troops?"

  "Gentlemen, this is. . . ah. . . Sam. He's come up with an angle that throws new light on the search."

  "It better be damned well worth it to drag us off the docks," grunted Manny. "We've got little time to waste on asshole theories."

  "You're no closer now to finding the bomb than you were twenty-four hours ago," Clark said patiently.

  "I suggest you listen to what he has to say"

  "Screw you," Manny said. "Just when we found a way to slip on board one of the freighters, you call us back."

  "You could have searched every inch of those ships and never found a ton-and-a-half nuclear device,"

  said Pitt.

  Manny turned his attention to Pitt, eyes traveling from feet to hair, like a linebacker sizing up an opposing halfback. "Okay, smartass, where's our bomb?"

  "Three bombs," Pitt corrected, "and none of them nuclear."

  There was silence in the room. Everyone but Clark appeared skeptical.

  Pitt pulled the map from under his shirt and unfolded it. He borrowed some pins from a mannikin and stuck it on one wall. He was not put off by the indifferent attitude of the group of CIA agents. His eyes showed him these men were alert, precise, and competent. He knew they possessed a remarkable variety of skills and the absolute determination of men who did not take failure lightly.

  "The Amy Bigalow is the first link in the holocaust chain. Her cargo of twenty-five thousand tons of ammonium nitrate--"

  "That's nothing but fertilizer," said Manny.

  "--is also a highly volatile chemical," Pitt continued. "If that amount of ammonium nitrate were to explode, its force would be far greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were air drops and much of their destructive power was lost in the atmosphere. When the Amy Bigalow blows at ground level, most of her power will sweep through Havana like a hurricane of molten lava. The Ozero Zaysan, whose manifest claims she's carrying military supplies, is probably crammed to the top of her holds with munitions. She'll unleash her destructive horror in a sympathetic explosion with the Amy Bigalow. Next, the Ozero Baykai and her oil will ignite, adding to the devastation. Fuel storage tanks, refineries, chemical plants, any factory with volatile materials, will go up. The conflagration can conceivably last for days."

  Outwardly, Manny, Moe, and Jack appeared uncomprehending, the expressions on their faces inscrutable. Inwardly, they were stunned by the unthinkable horror of Pitt's vision of hell.

  Moe looked at Clark. "He's on dead center, you know."

  "I agree. Langley misread the Soviets' intent. The same results can be achieved without resorting to nuclear terror."

  Manny rose and clasped Pitt's shoulders between two great clamshell hands. "Man, I gotta hand it to you. You really know where the crap flows."

  Jack spoke up for the first time. "Impossible to unload those ships before the celebration tomorrow."

  "But they can be moved," said Pitt.

  Manny considered that for a moment. "The freighters might clear the harbor, but I wouldn't bet on getting the tanker under way in time. We'd need a tug just to shove her bows toward the channel."

  "Every mile we put between those ships and the harbor means a hundred thousand lives spared," said Pitt.

  "Might give us extra time to look for the detonators," said Moe.

  "If they can be found before we reach open sea, so much the better."

  "And if not," Manny muttered grimly, "we'll all be committin' suicide."

  "Save your wife the cost of a funeral," said Jack with a death's-head smile. "There won't be anything left to bury"

  Moe looked doubtful. "We're way short of hands."

  "How many ship's engineers can you scrape up?" asked Pitt.

  Moe nodded across the room. "Manny there used to be a chief engineer. Who else can you name, Manny?"

  "Enrico knows his way around an engine room. So does Hector when he's sober."

  "That's three," said Pitt. "What about deckhands?"

  "Fifteen, seventeen including Moe and Jack," answered Clark.

  "Th
at's twenty, and I make twenty-one," said Pitt. "What about harbor pilots?"

  "Every one of them bastards is in Castro's pocket," snorted Manny. "We'll have to steer the ships clear ourselves."

  "Wait just a damned minute," interjected Moe. "Even if we overpowered the security force guarding the docks, we'd still have the ships' crews to fight."

  Pitt turned to Clark. "If your people take care of the guards, I'll eliminate the crews."

  "I'll personally lead a combat team," replied Clark. "But I'm curious as to how you intend to accomplish your end of the bargain."

  "Already done," Pitt said with a wide grin. "The ships are abandoned. I'll guarantee that the crews have been quietly evacuated to a safe place outside the destruction zone."

  "The Soviets might spare the lives of their own people," said Moe. "But they'd hardly give a damn about the foreign crew on the Amy Bigalow."

  "Sure, but on the other hand, they couldn't risk a nosy crewman hanging around while the detonating device was placed in position."

  Jack thought a moment, then said, "Two and two make four. This guy is sharp."

  Manny gazed at Pitt with a newfound respect in his eyes. "You with the company?"

  "No, NUMA."

  "Second-guessed by an amateur," Manny sighed. "Time to take my pension."

  "How many men do you estimate are patrolling the ships?" Clark asked him.

  Manny took out a soiled handkerchief and blew his nose like a honking goose before answering.

  "About a dozen guarding the Bigalow. Same number around the Zaysan. A small patrol boat is moored next to the oil tanker. Probably no more than six or seven in her crew."

  Clark began to pace back and forth as he spoke. "So that's it. Gather up your crews. My team will take out the guards and protect the operation. Manny, you and your men will get the Amy Bigalow under way. Moe, take the Ozero Zaysan. The tugboat is your department, Jack. Just make sure there isn't an alarm when you pirate it. We've got six hours of daylight left. Let's make good use of every minute." He stopped and looked around. "Any questions?"