by Ted Bell
“What’s inside my suitcase, you don’t mind me asking?”
“It’s difficult to describe, señor,” Iglesias said. “You’ve heard of a Roach Motel?”
“Yeah. The bugs check in but they don’t check out.”
“Well, inside that suitcase is a kind of reverse Roach Motel,” Julio said.
“Sí, he’s right,” Iglesias chimed in. “In this motel, the bugs they are already checked in, but they can’t wait to check out. Check out and kick some gringo ass.”
“But here’s the good part, señor,” Julio added. “The bugs? Decoys. The real killer is some kind of bitchin’ new nerve toxin, man. It’s a deadly combo, one-two punch, I’m serious.”
“The hell you guys talking about?” Gomez said. He was getting shaky again. He could really use a cold one right now. But, and it was a big but, all right, he knew he had to keep his cool if he was ever going to see one million smackers up close and personal.
“It’s a new kind of bug bomb, Elvis,” Iglesias said. “The very latest in modern biological technology. Cause some very serious fuckage, man.”
Julio and Iglesias both looked at him. Hard.
“Bug bomb,” Gomez said. “What the fuck’s a bug bomb?”
7
Hawke perched on the gunwale in his mask and flippers, waiting impatiently for Congreve and the Russians. All were struggling to get their gear on properly.
“You’ve got your mask on upside down, Ambrose,” he said. “That’s why the snorkel’s mouthpiece is above your head instead of below it. Quite useless, the way you’re wearing it. Don’t forget to spit in it, before you put it on.”
“Spit in it? Bloody hell,” Congreve muttered, and reversed the thing.
“You only need the mask and snorkel until we’re through the underwater entrance. Once we surface inside Thunderball, there’s plenty of air. Tell your little friends to hurry it up, please. The tide waits for no man, Constable.”
“You know, of course, that those are sharks in the water,” Ambrose said.
“Hmm, yes,” Hawke said. “The vast majority of sharks around here generally prefer plankton to people, old boy. The poison coral is what you need to watch out for. Here, put these gloves on.”
“And what about the vast minority of sharks?” Ambrose asked, but Hawke had neatly executed a frogman’s backflip into the water and he was gone.
He kicked down a few feet below the surface, looking for the entrance. It was right where he remembered it would be. Only now, some very large sharks guarded it. Luckily, they were mostly of the nurse variety, timid and easily frightened by man.
Ignoring them, Hawke swam straight for the opening.
One particularly resolute shark stood his ground as Hawke approached. There was no getting around him. He was hovering directly in front of the entrance and wasn’t planning to budge. Hawke hovered a foot or so away, eye-to-eye with the blackest pair of eyes he’d ever seen. Hawke patted him on the snout, and the fish bolted like a scalded cat.
Hawke smiled. Ambrose and the Russkies were probably going to encounter this very same fellow. Ambrose, he hoped, would recognize him as strictly a sushi devotee.
Kicking forward, he carefully avoided the jagged coral surrounding the entrance. Some of the coral, he knew, was poisonous. Problem was, he had no idea which coral. Glad of his diving gloves, he had to grab the jagged outcroppings to pull himself through fairly tight quarters. In a moment, he was inside the grotto and bobbing up to the surface, floating in the pure beam of sunlight from the blow-hole some fifteen feet above his head.
It was staggeringly beautiful inside, he saw, pulling off his dive mask. Far more stunning than in the early-morning light he’d seen earlier. A natural cathedral of coral and stone; sunlight shimmering on the sculptured walls and turning the water inside a most amazing shade of clear green. Hawke replaced his mask and ducked his head back underwater. There were dozens of fish of every size and description, including a school of yellow and black striped creatures packed so tightly they seemed a single, darting mass.
Sergeant-Majors.
That’s what the striped fish were called. The name had just popped into his head. He flashed on himself as a child, reaching out to touch the fish. Odd. How the hell would he know that name? Must have been a documentary he’d seen on that BBC nature program.
Diving down to the rocky floor, exploring a forest of stalagmites, he came upon a massive dark shape lurking in the shadows. Swimming closer, he was just about to reach out to rouse the creature, when the thing darted upward toward his outstretched hand, opening its jaws. All Hawke saw as he yanked his hand back were the spiky fangs filling the wide mouth and he spun around, kicking hard for the surface of the grotto. A moray eel. Powerful jaws, razor-sharp teeth. Reflexes almost as good as his own. But, thank God, not quite.
Thinking about introducing Ambrose to this truly scary character, Hawke was surprised to see the man himself when he reached the surface.
“Smashing, isn’t it, Constable?” Hawke said, lifting the mask from his face. “Welcome to Thunderball!”
Congreve mumbled something in reply, but he still had his snorkel mouthpiece in place. Hawke reached over and popped it out of his friend’s mouth. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“I was saying that I will get you for this,” Ambrose Congreve spouted, spewing seawater and coughing.
“A little dicey getting in, I’ll admit, but those sharks are harmless. Besides, look around you, Ambrose! Rather surreal, wouldn’t you say?” The resounding echo of Hawke’s voice added to the magical quality of the grotto.
Congreve ignored him, looking around for the damnable Russians who’d been swimming right behind him. Terrified they might have panicked and, worse yet, that Hawke might ask him to go get them, he was thrilled to see first one, then the other, pop to the surface. Coughing and sputtering, they removed their masks and didn’t bother to try to conceal the terror that was plain on their faces.
The bearded bear shouted one word over and over to Congreve and made a jerking gesture with his hand.
“What does that word mean, Ambrose?”
“Sharks, sharks, sharks,” Congreve translated. “They are extremely unhappy about your choice of venue, absolutely petrified of sharks, and would like to leave immediately. I must say I have a lot of sympathy for their position.”
“Sorry. It’s here or nowhere.”
Congreve translated and, after a rancorous exchange, the Russians seemed to resign themselves to their fate. The four swimmers formed up into a circle, paddling to stay in place.
“I’ll be brief,” Hawke said. “I am interested in making a purchase. Extremely interested.”
The translation brought smiles back to the faces of the Russians. They spoke rapidly to Congreve.
“They will be happy to oblige you,” Congreve said. “The hover-crafts are reasonably priced. Only sold in lots of three. Two million pounds each. Guaranteed delivery in eight weeks.”
“No, no. No bloody hovercraft,” Hawke said.
Congreve gave him a puzzled look. “What then?”
“Tell them I want to buy a ‘boomer.’ A Soviet Akula-class submarine.”
A nuclear submarine? But Congreve didn’t even blink. He’d been with Hawke too long. He told the Russians what Hawke had said. Both men bobbed their heads excitedly.
“I assume that’s a yes,” Hawke said. “How much and how long until I get it?”
The exchange was brief. Congreve said, “They have an Akula. Excellent condition. One of the last to be built. Fifty million dollars, half up front, the other half payable upon delivery. Six months to get the vessel seaworthy and assemble a trained crew and shoreside maintenance team.”
Hawke eyed the Russians evenly. “How old?” he asked.
Congreve asked and said, “One of the last Soviet subs produced. The Akula Typhoon. Built in 1995.”
“No, no,” Hawke said. “No Typhoon. I want the very last series they built. The Akula
II. Code name Borzoi.”
Congreve told them and it generated a lot of head-shaking protestation by the Russians. Ambrose finally said, “They don’t know anything about a Borzoi.”
“My information says they’re lying. Tell them I want a Borzoi. I’m prepared to pay a considerable sum of money. And I want to speak directly to the last person to purchase one. For this kind of money, the emptor better damn well caveat.”
Upon hearing this wrinkle, the bobbing heads of the Russians conferred with each other. Rasputin clearly wanted to proceed; the other one did not. He’d been expecting this to be the hard part. It was why he’d chosen this location to negotiate.
“You’ll notice,” Hawke said, “that the tide has been rising. Very shortly we will be banging our heads on those nasty-looking coral stalactites up there. Some are poisonous. After that, we run out of air. Also, notice how rapidly the sun’s angle through the blowhole is changing. It will be almost completely dark inside soon. Even now there’s not enough light to swim out without getting yourself chopped up by the poisonous coral. Unless, like me, you have one of these dive lights.”
Hawke switched on the high-powered light mounted above his dive mask and directed it toward the Russians, who grimaced in the glare and turned away.
“The experimental Akula II,” Hawke said. “Borzoi. Twin-hulled sub shaped like a boomerang. Carries forty warheads. Tell them that’s the only boat I’m interested in.”
Congreve translated after a brief parley and said, “They say they don’t know anything about a second-generation Akula. They say the Akula I was the last sub produced before the collapse of the Soviet Navy.”
“Fine,” Hawke said. He switched off the light and plunged them all into shadowy darkness. “We’ll all just bob around in here until their memory improves or they drown. Whichever comes first.”
Thirty seconds later there was a sharp cry of pain. The surging tide had smashed one of the Russians up against the jagged stalactites that formed the grotto’s ceiling. Hawke switched on the light and aimed it at the Russians. The skinny little one had a bloody gash over his right eye.
“I want a Borzoi, comrade,” Hawke said, swimming up to him and getting right in his facemask. “Nothing else. Is that clear? Borzoi.”
The Russian sputtered something, shaking his head and peering into Hawke’s mask.
“What’s he say?” Hawke asked Congreve.
“He says yes.”
“Pithy,” Hawke said, smiling behind his mask.
“He says, yes, it’s possible he may be able to locate a Borzoi for you. The price will be very high, however.”
“Good,” Hawke said, smiling at Congreve. “I thought they’d rise to the occasion. Tell them we’ll talk money over dinner aboard Blackhawke. The launch will pick them up at the dock. Seven sharp. Dinner at eight.”
Hawke dove and kicked down, his powerful beam catching the brilliant fish and multicolored coral and lighting the way out of Thunderball. He wasn’t surprised to find his little flock paddling right behind him.
8
Colonel Manso de Herreras sat on the unshaded platform next to the empty chair of his closest friend, the Maximum Leader. Fidel Castro. The Cuban caudillo.
Manso was sweating profusely. His uniform was drenched. Perspiration burned his eyes. It wasn’t the heat that was bothering him, though. It was the chain of events he planned to unleash when and if this never-ending ceremony was concluded. The last Communist leader in the Western Hemisphere had already been speaking for well over an hour.
The platform where Manso sat baking beside the empty chair was on the white marble terrace of the old Habana Yacht Club. They were in one of the old neighborhoods, only a few blocks from the leader’s primary residence. Still, there were six big black Mercedes parked in the circular drive. The leader never rode in the same car twice. Never slept in the same house two nights in a row.
Manso had been sitting in the sun on the flimsy folding chair for almost two hours now. He’d turned a deaf ear to the ceremony and passed the time gazing out over the drowsy harbor. There were a few fishing trawlers crisscrossing the mirrorlike sea. He’d followed their passages idly, trying to tune out the papery voice at the lectern.
It was a dedication ceremony of some kind, God knows what. It was easily the third one he’d attended this week. He no longer bothered to find out who or what they were honoring at these events. They were constantly honoring or dedicating something or other lately, he’d noticed. It hardly seemed to matter what it was.
They would dedicate a tractor if they could find one that was running, he thought, scanning the crowd for any pretty señoritas. He had come to believe that el jefe either enjoyed being handed wilted carnations by endless processions of schoolgirls or was convinced such festivities took the people’s minds off some of their more immediate problems.
Like eating.
An American joke had circulated recently amongst the higher echelons of the Cuban military and State Security. The joke had it that Castro had gotten everything right in Cuba but three little things. Breakfast. Lunch. And dinner.
Since their beloved comrades in Moscow had abandoned them in the early nineties, his country’s economy had crashed and burned. Cuba now had one of the lowest per capita incomes in the Caribbean, ranking right up there with that other economic powerhouse, Haiti. He was sure that el jefe wasn’t mentioning that little economic tidbit in his remarks.
The Soviets had poured a hundred billion dollars into the island of Cuba. Where had it all gone, Manso and his band of disgruntled confederates wondered.
A short list: the army, its uniforms, and missiles. The now-outdated electric power system. A nuclear power plant intended to wean Cuba off foreign oil and left two-thirds completed. A twenty-six-square-mile intelligence-gathering complex outside of Lourdes that Fidel was now trying to peddle to the Chinese. And countless enormous, hideously ugly residential buildings now falling down around their ears because of the amazingly shoddy construction.
And of course, there was the highway system. Ah, yes. Since shortages of fuel, oil, and machinery parts had paralyzed transportation, the endless miles of highways were utterly useless. Sugar production, the economy’s mainstay, had been cut in half. New tourism efforts were helping some, but not nearly enough. Unless drastic measures were taken, Cuba, already running on fumes, would soon be running on empty.
Manso shifted in his chair. The metal seat had begun to roast his backside to a crisp. The hot seat reminded him of yet another misery, the shortage of paper. No books, no magazines, no toilet paper. Thank God for the limitless supply of Marxist economic textbooks that the Cuban populace had finally, after forty years, put to good use.
They also found the Communist paper, Granma, very useful. Published only every other day, it consisted of eight pages full of pap about la lucha, the “struggle,” and how the people must endure these sacrifices for the greater glory. Manso had read an article that very morning stating that not eating was good for you! Privately, Manso had taken to calling Granma the Toilet Paper.
But there was no shortage of speeches and dedications like this one, Manso thought, mopping his brow. The production of speeches, dedications, and pontifications, always high, had recently gone through the roof.
The comandante, at the podium well over an hour or so already, was warming to his theme. As if it weren’t warm enough already, Manso thought, reaching for a cup of iced lemonade beneath his chair. The ice had melted but the tangy juice helped a little.
Out on the lawn, Manso’s olive-green helicopter was waiting. In approximately one half hour, God willing, he and the comandante were scheduled to depart for Manso’s retreat on the southeast coast for the weekend. The two of them would be flying out alone, with Manso at the controls of the aging Kamov 26 helicopter gunship.
Before Fidel had made him head of State Security, Manso had been the highest-ranking colonel in the Air Force. He had a distinguished flying record and many decorations. He w
as also the only pilot in Cuba to whom the comandante would entrust his life.
The flying time to his personal estate, Manso estimated, was just less than two hours. The weather was perfect, but it still promised to be an exciting flight.
Manso’s estate occupied a good deal of the five thousand acres of an island just off the town of Manzanillo. Manso, whose boyhood nickname had been Araña, the spider, had called the place Finca Telaraña, the Spider’s Web. Originally, it had been just a casita on the balmy shores of the Golfo de Guacanayabo. A little retreat, where he and the great leader could escape the pressures of La Habana and have a little fun.
Over the years, Manso had gotten very good at finding ever newer and more interesting ways of keeping el comandante amused. There was, of course, no shortage of girls willing to do anything for money or el jefe.
The most recent event Manso had staged at Finca Telaraña was a tree-climbing contest. About ten local beauty queens had participated. They had stripped and raced for the trees. The winner got an expensive jeweled watch, while the losers had to shave their heads, eat a few live insects, and perform an elaborate dance number while everyone else enjoyed an exquisite buffet.
Manso supplied the female pipeline and he kept it full. This talent had helped his career in the Air Force enormously. Not to mention the size of his personal fortune. Manso had also done many favors for his leader. Favors Castro would entrust to no one else.
“He has become an inconvenience, Manso” was all that needed to be said. The man, or his entire family, would disappear. Always with a knife, never a gun. Guns, Manso had discovered very early in life, were no fun at all. He had grown up in the cane fields of Oriente province. He had learned that a razor-sharp machete made him the equal of bigger, stronger, and even wiser men.
When he was still a boy, he had formed a small band known as the Macheteros. The machete wielders. Once, barely twelve, he and his two brothers had kidnapped a staff member of the Soviet consulate. The Russian bastard had insulted his mother in the street. They’d placed him in a cotton sack and taken him at midnight out into the cane fields. Swigging rum up in the cab of the stolen pickup, the three brothers laughed at the man bouncing around in the back of the truck’s bed as they careened through the tall cane.