“Pull!” yelled Red, along with a few other words not suitable for tender ears.
A mouthful of muddy sand stopped her cursing as she was dragged down by Shotgun’s weight. By the time Doc and Mongoose pulled the pair from the muck, they were both covered head to toe in thick, sandy mud.
Shotgun being Shotgun, he started to laugh.
Red shut him up with a punch to the stomach so hard he nearly fell back in the ditch.
“You’re lucky she hit you,” said Doc. “Next time, you watch where the hell you’re going.”
The only workable detour was two miles to the south; they backtracked and swung east to a small hamlet and rode about a mile along a highway before doglegging to a much less traveled lane. The mud had dried and started to stink; Doc put them at the back of the pack when the wind shifted. Finally they came to a stream with enough water for them to wash in. Red shed her wet suit in favor of the pants and shirt she’d taken off earlier; Shotgun rinsed the civilian clothes as best he could, hoping the air would dry them as he rode. This was only partly successful.
The delay cost them more than an hour and a half, but they still arrived a little more than an hour ahead of the scheduled rendezvous. They dismounted a mile south of the barnyard where the meeting was to take place, then spread out so they could observe the area before moving in.
Senor Fernandez was supposed to meet them near an old tobacco barn set back behind a row of trees a hundred feet from the road. There was a ramshackle building near the barn, along with a battered and very rusted fence. They checked the area thoroughly, making sure it wasn’t under surveillance.
Everything was clear. Concerned that there might be further delays on the way back, Doc decided to send Red and Mongoose north to pick up Traba’s brother on their own, while he and Shotgun handled the exchange.5
After they’d gone over the barn a second time, Shotgun took a post in some trees at the eastern end of the farmyard, where he could cover Doc if there was trouble during the handoff. Doc stayed back by the road, using a pair of Gen 3 night-vision goggles to scan for approaching cars.
A pair of vehicles appeared a few minutes later. They were Chevy Impalas, made in the mid-eighties, probably imported originally from Canada. They rode almost bumper to bumper, kicking up a good cloud of dust as they approached the barn. Neither had its lights on.
“There’s one car too many,” said Shotgun, watching from the tree. “I assume this isn’t him.”
“Never ass-ume,” said Doc.
“Ha!”
A few moments later the first car pulled off toward the barn; the second continued down the road.
“There’s one person in the car,” said Shotgun.
Doc squatted at the side of the road, watching as the car door opened. The interior light had been switched off.
“Middle-aged guy, chunky stomach and slicked-back hair, looks like the picture,” reported Shotgun. “Kinda like the picture. Taking out a cigar. Big thick one.”
The man began pacing.
“Is he armed?” Doc asked.
“Don’t see a gun. Think it’s our guy?”
“Maybe.”
“What do you want to do?”
What Doc wanted to do was find out where the other car had gone. He cursed himself for sending off Red and Mongoose—if they had still been with him, he could have had them follow the other car.
The rendezvous wasn’t set for another half hour. Doc decided Fernandez could wait.
“Shotgun, can you slide down from that tree without our friend seeing you?”
“Shit, yeah.”
“See if that car stopped anywhere along the road past the curve. Make sure they’re not trying to flank us,” said Doc. He was already moving to the south, doing the same thing on his side of the road.
“That means going through the swamp,” said Shotgun.
“You’re afraid of getting wet?”
Shotgun stifled a laugh. “You think they’re setting up an ambush?” he asked, picking his way through the muck.
“I think there’s one car too many,” said Doc. “Beyond that, I’m not thinking at all.”
( II )
It took Red and Mongoose roughly fifteen minutes to reach the hamlet where Traba’s brother lived. There were less than two dozen houses in the settlement; not one had any lights on or showed any other sign of activity. Still, they took their time checking the area out, making sure the brother’s house wasn’t being watched.
The hamlet was shaped like a cheez doodle, with the brother’s house at the southwestern end, not easily seen from the main road or the neighbor’s property. A narrow, rutted lane ran from the main road almost directly to the brother’s door. A swamp backed up on the rear of the house, surrounding it on both sides. Red and Mongoose stashed their bikes near the main road—hard-packed gravel and barely wide enough for a single car to pass—then approached the house. Both had their MP5Ns6 ready.
“Pretty small,” whispered Mongoose. “Can’t be more than two or three rooms.”
“You go around the back,” said Red. “I’ll go through the front.”
“You gonna knock?”
“Maybe. Let’s see what we can see first.”
Red squatted a few yards from the house, waiting while Mongoose worked through the soggy ground to the back. While she’d been in Cuba many times, she’d never been this far east. A million different things were going through her head, but mostly she was rehearsing what she was going to say.
Your brother sent us. Come.
We’re taking you to safety now, to the north. Hurry.
Get your things and come.
But the opening was easy compared to the follow-up. Not every Cuban wanted to leave Cuba, as she well knew from her own family. Even a man in Traba’s position might find dozens of reasons to stay.
Technically, Red didn’t have to wake him at all. She was carrying a small pouch with a hypodermic needle and a vial of sedative strong enough to put a man to sleep for ten to twelve hours. But Red didn’t want to use the drug. Not so much because they’d have to lash the brother to the bike, but because she thought he should have a choice about his future.
“There’s one window back here,” said Mongoose over the radio. “I can’t see much through the shade. And the dirt.”
Red moved up toward the house. She hesitated outside, curling her hand into a fist to knock. Then she decided knocking might make too much noise.
The door was locked. Red moved to the window on her left. Dropping to her knees, she tried peering inside but her view was blocked by a drawn shade just as Mongoose’s had been.
The window was locked. Red pulled the sleeve up on her shirt, then broke the top panel with her fist. The noise was louder than she had thought—it always is—and she froze for a fraction of a second. Then her instincts and training kicked back in. She reached inside and flipped the lock back, raising the window quickly so she could get in. Red pushed the shade aside, stepping to her right and dropping to a squat, her eyes adjusting to the dark.
“I’m inside,” she whispered over the radio.
“Good. Copy,” said Mongoose.
The front room was a combination kitchen and sitting area. It smelled dank and foul.
Red stayed low to the ground as she passed the window, heading toward the single doorway at the far left. She stopped at the threshold of a short hall. There was a bathroom on the right. The plumbing must be broken, she thought; the place smelled like a latrine that had overflowed.
“Mr. Traba,” she said softly. “Mr. Traba. Your brother sent us to rescue you.”
She stepped into the back room, used as a bedroom. The bed was on the right. Something loomed in front of her, to her left.
Red whirled toward it, gun up, finger on the trigger.
A foot touched her.
A dead foot. Traba’s brother had hanged himself from the rafter in despair several days ago.
( III )
Down at the farmyard, Senor
Fernandez was still waiting for Doc to make the exchange.
So were the four guys who’d been in the second car. Shotgun had spotted two of them fanned out on a rise about a hundred yards off the road; they had just enough height to see into the barnyard.
“One of ’em’s got a rifle with a nightscope,” Shotgun reported from their flank. “Looks like he’s got it zeroed on the barnyard.”
Doc didn’t answer. He was too busy ducking the other two men, who were moving east across the road to set up another watchpoint. They were fairly skilled, carefully checking their flanks as they moved. Doc was just a little better, managing to slip behind them as they came back toward the barn.
“I can take these guys,” Shotgun told Doc. “You want me to?”
“Negative,” said Doc. Not only didn’t it make sense to take the risk, but he wasn’t positive they were there to ambush him—in theory, they could just be covering Fernandez in case of a double cross.
Not that it felt that way to Doc. He swung back around the two men he’d let pass him, following them from about forty yards. They ended up in the ditch where he had been earlier. He worked his way to a line of trees maybe thirty yards beyond them, shimmying up the thickest to watch what they were up to. With his night goggles, Doc could see Fernandez beyond them, pacing near the car, chewing on his cigar.
Fernandez was still smoking ten minutes after the appointed rendezvous time. The men in the ditch were still watching, as were the others to the south on the rise beyond the swamp.
Go in? Or stay.
Doc leaned toward stay.
“Looks like these guys are getting antsy,” said Shotgun finally. “One of ’em is taking out a phone.”
“Mmmm,” mumbled Doc.
“Looks like a cell phone. Clamshell thing. Think they’re cops?”
“I told you, Shotgun, don’t think. Just watch.”
Ordinary Cubans were forbidden to have cell phones, and all calls on the island were monitored. But Doc expected that a spy—especially one with Fernandez’s connections—would have some way of communicating with his compatriots.
Still, it looked too risky. He ordered Shotgun to keep his distance.
A few minutes later, he saw another car coming south on the road. This one had its lights on. The men in the ditch tensed, leaning forward, but not bringing their AKs to bear on the car. At the last second it veered toward the barn, missing the driveway and fishtailing toward the yard beyond, where Senor Fernandez was waiting. Fernandez shook his head and turned toward the headlights.
Doc pulled himself a little higher on the tree. He checked the two men who were nearby, making sure they were still focused on the barnyard. Then he watched as a man got out of the car in the barnyard. Fernandez, standing a few feet away, took the cigar from his mouth as if to say something.
He never got a chance. A submachine gun fired from the backseat of the car, taking him down. The man who’d gotten out turned on his heel and got back in.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Shotgun.
“They just shot Fernandez,” said Doc.
“Shit.”
“Just sit tight.”
As the car came out from behind the barn, Doc crawled toward the road and got a good look at it. It was a Ford, a little older than the Chevies. There were no tags and except for the blurry outline of the driver, he couldn’t see inside.
The two men in the ditch seemed to relax.
“My guys are going back to the car,” said Shotgun.
“When the car’s gone, go back up to the barnyard,” Doc whispered. “Be careful.”
The men Shotgun had been watching got in the car. As it reached the road, the men in the ditch rose and went to the road to wait, murmuring softly as the car made its way to them. After they were gone, Doc circled around the barn, heading for Fernandez. There was no question the Cuban agent was dead; the bullets had taken off a good part of his head and blood was pooled around his body.
“I gotta tell Dick what’s going on,” said Doc, taking out his sat phone.
______
Up until this point, we’d been orbiting off the coast in the PBM at about fifty feet, low enough that any radars would have a tough time spotting us.
Which is another way of saying we were sitting with our thumbs up our butts, waiting for something to happen.
“Fernandez just got wasted,” said Doc as soon as we connected.
“OK,” I told him after he described the situation. “Get back south. Keep the discs with you. What happened to Traba’s brother?”
“Red and Mongoose should be back with him any second. I’ll check in with her as soon as I’m off with you—we’re a little too far for the radio.”
“All right. Don’t screw around. Get back to the boat.”
“I was thinking I’d hit a duty-free shop on the way out.”
I went forward and told the pilot I wanted to see where the cars were going.
“It’s dangerous, Dick.”
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
“Just so you know.”
He hit the throttle, banked sharply, and took us over the land.
“I see the highway, Dick,” said Junior, pointing through the open hatchway as I came back.
We were still a few miles south of the barn. Even with the night glasses, it was hard to sort the structures out—the small ones looked big, and vice versa. Unlike in America, where even the most remote town will give off a gentle glow of light at the darkest part of the night, Cuba was completely dark.
“There’s the barn,” said Junior.
I’m not sure whether he was right or not; it passed by in a flash. The pilot pulled us parallel to the road, no higher than a hundred feet, flying at a slight tilt to make it easier for us to see the ground. Junior and I gripped the bulkhead and overhead struts as tightly as we could—a slip would send us out of the plane.
“Hey, you think those are the cars?” shouted Junior.
They had pulled off the road just shy of the highway.
“Gotta be.”
“Why do you think they stopped?” asked Junior.
I could think of two reasons. One was that someone had to take a whiz.
I grabbed the sat phone.
“Doc, get away from Fernandez and his car!” I shouted as the connection went through.
I’m not sure how much of my warning Doc heard, if any. The vehicle exploded before I ended the sentence, the fireball so intense we could see it easily from the plane.
There are certain points in a mission, any mission, where you feel the need to sit back and say something profoundly perceptive and even philosophical, generally along the lines of “Goddamn, that’s fucked up.”
You may have the need, but usually you don’t have the time. And we didn’t here.
Either because of my warning, his sixth sense, or his incredibly expanding karma, Doc managed to dive away from the car just before it exploded. He scrambled behind the barn as the fireball rose, escaping most of the heat and all of the shrapnel.
Shotgun, still wading through the swamp, let out a whistle. Then he did what he always does when he’s impressed by something: he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his snacks, in this case a mini-bag of Frito corn chips.
“Nice,” he said, rising as the flames settled. “You OK, Doc?”
Doc gave him a status report, along with a few other adjectives relating to the lack of apparent concern in Shotgun’s voice.
“Hey, I knew you were OK,” replied Shotgun. “I’m just admiring the explosion. As an artist.”
“They didn’t use enough explosive,” growled Doc, walking back over toward the car.
Maybe not by Doc’s standards, but there’d been more than enough to mince Senor Fernandez’s body into its component parts. The car’s frame looked like a mangled paperclip, with some bits of fabric attached.
“Look at this, Doc—his cigar is intact,” said Shotgun, walking over near the barn to exam
ine the debris. “I’ll bet that proves some sort of law of physics or something.”
“Get those damn chips out of your mouth,” said Doc. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“Physics,” said Shotgun. “Probably one of the laws of thermodynamics. For every cigar in an explosion, there is an opposite and equal explosion.”
Doc examined the trail of debris until he came upon a small hunk of slightly singed plastic.
It was Senor Fernandez’s cell phone, still more or less intact. I won’t describe the melted skin or the shards of bone that were embedded in the cover.
At Traba’s brother’s house, Red and Mongoose debated whether to cut the body down. Actually, it wasn’t much of a debate: Mongoose said they shouldn’t; Red took out her survival knife and slit through the rope.
The dead man weighed less than a hundred pounds. He’d soiled his clothes after he died, and his body had already stiffened, bloated, and started to rot. Red carried him as gently as she could and laid him on the bed.
“We really should get out of here,” said Mongoose.
Red looked for a suicide note. She found a sealed letter on the bare wood top of a table a few feet from where he’d hung himself. Hesitating a second, she opened it and began to read.
It was addressed to his brother, the barber.
In a perfect world, it would have been a sad but forgiving letter, telling Roberto Traba how much he loved him and how he knew he had to get away to save the children.
But we don’t live in a perfect world.
“I hope you rot in hell,” were the opening words, and then it got nasty.
Red took a lighter from her pocket and burned it. She kicked the ashes around the floor, grinding them into the wood and dirt before they left.
Exploding cars are not exactly an everyday occurrence in Cuba, and while the farm was at least a mile from the nearest house, the explosion had been spectacular enough to rouse most of the district. The police and local fire brigade were called and rushed toward the scene.
RW15 - Seize the Day Page 4