The signs were handy as well as convenient, since they were made of metal and almost exactly the right size to cause a short between two of the poles in one of the transformers. The eighth of an inch or so difference between a perfect fit and just missing was not a drawback; the gap produced a huge spark that not only fried everything within two feet, but made a nice crackly sound as it did.
The shock also threw me into the fence, even though I was a good distance away when I tossed the sign across the open wires. The outline of my body is probably still pressed into the links.
“Quitting time,” I told Red over the radio. She was still inside, near the front of the building. “Meet me in the van.”
“Madre Maria,” she said. “Mother of God.”
“You OK?”
“I’m fine. I’m going to the van.”
I walked back through the building, which was now in the dark. The secretaries and other office people were complaining about the power failure. One came out of her office and asked if I knew what was going on. I shrugged and shook my head.
Power interruptions are not as common as they once were in Cuba, but if we’d been anywhere else, this one would have elicited a few curses but no real surprise. Apparently the cement plant, though, had some sort of priority and was not used to being cut off in the middle of the day. The plant boss followed me out to the truck, sure that we had caused the power outage. He promised that I would end the day with a job cleaning toilets in the farthest reaches of the province.
Red leaned her head out the window and said calmly that we had nothing to do with the power failure, but couldn’t work while the plant was in the dark. When the power was restored, we would come back.
A reasonable response, but the plant manager hadn’t gotten his position by being reasonable. He ranted and raved, until the only thing left to do was give him the one-fingered salute and leave the way we had come.
“It should take them until tonight to get everything sorted out,” I said after everyone had checked in. “We’ll have to have the trucks back by then.”
“I hope that’s enough,” said Red.
She held out a newspaper she had grabbed off one of the desks inside, and immediately I realized why she had Mother-of-Godded inside the building: according to Granma, Fidel had gone to the hospital the night before with a heart attack.
He was still alive, but just barely.
( V )
We parked the vans about a half mile down the road from the intersection of the highway and the rough-cut road. Then we hiked up through the woods to the others, who were waiting with the trucks. Since the legitimate vehicles all traveled with only two people, we decided two of us would have to hide. But there was no practical place to do that except the cab, which meant squeezing down in the space behind the seat.18 I went with Shotgun and Mongoose; Trace, Doc, and Red took the other truck.
Cramped as it was behind the seat, I was completely hidden from view as Mongoose rolled up to the gate, pausing just long enough for the soldier to wave us through.
“Man, did you see that burrito he was eating?” Shotgun asked as we rumbled on.
“That wasn’t a burrito. Burritos are Mexican.”
“What was it?”
“Some sort of food thing.”
“A food thing?”
“Yeah, a thing.”
“I think it was a burrito.”
“Shotgun, when this mission is over, I’m arranging an audition for you for the Food Channel,” I said, squeezing myself out from the back as we cleared the gate.
“Wow. Will you?”
“Yeah, they’ll call your show Dipstick and the Iron Chef,” said Mongoose.
“Who’s Dipstick?” asked Shotgun.
I left them cutting on each other and slipped out of the truck. Dressed like your typical Cuban day worker, I had a small fanny pack at my belt, carrying a rotozip and some other tools I needed. My pistol, a PK that has been my companion through thick and thin, sat in the belt behind it. Heavier weapons, even a submachine gun, didn’t make sense; if I had to blast my way out, my mission had failed.
The complex covered nearly two square miles, and was laid out in the shape of a giant liver. We were on the top end, near the side of the ribs. Fidel’s bunker was all the way on the opposite end, where the large intestine bends down toward the anus.
Fitting, I suppose.
While the guard at the gate had let us through without a problem, he waved down Trace’s truck as she reached the gate.
“What do you think this is about?” she asked Red, who was hiding behind the seat.
“Not sure.”
The guard walked over and took the clipboard from the side of the truck. Then he walked over to his guardhouse.
“Must be some sort of spot check,” said Doc. “Hang tough.”
“If they’re going to do a spot check, then Red better get out of the cab,” Trace said. “Because they’ll search it.”
It was a good point, but Trace made it a little too late—the guard was already walking back. He put the clipboard back into its slot. Then he waved the truck forward—not down to the port where the others were dumping their loads, but to a small turnoff just a few yards away.
Trace considered ignoring him and simply driving down to the dock area, but a Russian Zil—a troop truck similar to the two-and-a-half-ton truck we used during the Cold War—came up and blocked her way.
“Now what?” whispered Trace as the guard went over and began speaking to the soldier driving the Zil.
“Distract them. Red—get out of the truck and go meet Dick,” said Doc. “Slip out behind me.”
Trace’s Spanish isn’t bad, but her accent would get her in trouble if she talked too much. So she needed to wordlessly distract everyone while Red got away from the truck.
She used an old standby—a strategically popping button. The button shot up as her boots hit the dirt. All eyes immediately stood at full attention. Red slid to the ground and slipped away as Doc walked in front of her.
Doc, conscious of his accent as well, settled for a glare rather than a harangue. This had the same effect on Cuban bureaucracy as it does on government workers in America: nothing.
In fact, Trace’s distraction had worked so well that not only were the two soldiers at the gate staring at her; everyone on the base within a hundred yards was probably focused on her chest.
“Cemento,” she said finally. “It will harden.”
The man who had stopped her tore his eyes from her chest, glanced at the cab, then he told them they were good to leave.
“Leave?”
“Sí. Turn around and go. Go.”
The crew contracted to work on the port had planned to work with twenty truckloads that day; the truck that Mongoose had driven through the gate was number twenty. The guard said he had not been too surprised by the extra truck—everyone knew that the dumb-shit campesinos on the eastern end of the island couldn’t count.
The plan had been for Red and me to survey the site while the trucks were dumping their cement. Doc and Shotgun would then slip away and help us get into the bunker, while the others drove off site to alleviate suspicion. There was no way that was going to work now.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told Doc over the radio as he and Trace headed toward the exit. “Shotgun, what’s your situation?”
“We got a construction foreman on our butt, yelling at Mongoose for not knowing what he’s doing,” whispered Shotgun. “He’s tearing him a new asshole. I think Mongoose is going to pop him.”
“Don’t let him do that.”
“Check. You want me to stay here?”
The supervisor, angry at Mongoose’s obvious incompetence, had taken over in the driver’s seat, shoving Mongoose aside. Shotgun had gotten out and enthusiastically directed the truck backward toward the dumping area. It was obvious that they were going to be watched fairly closely.
“Red and I will get into the bunker ourselves,” I told him. “Stay
with Mongoose. Get out of the installation and make sure you set up the Cubans real well before you leave them in the truck.”
“Copy that, chief.”
How did they set them up?
Both Trace and Mongoose drove around to the telephone trucks, where the original crewmen were still sleeping off the pokes Doc had administered. Along the way, Doc stopped at a small store and bought some rum. (Shotgun also bought some snacks, naturally.) The cement trucks were driven back into the yard and parked in the lot above the loading area, where the empty trucks were usually kept. The Cubans were untrussed, then liberally sprinkled with the alcohol.
We were never really sure whether they were all found like that, or if the drugs wore off in time for them to make a hasty escape. In any event, anyone downwind of them or the truck cabs would never believe anything they said.
Besides the fences, the only thing separating Red and me from Fidel’s house bunker were a pair of barracks buildings. In contrast to everything else on the base, both were very old, with paint peeling or worn off the sides, and several of the windows either broken or replaced by boards. Since they didn’t appear occupied, we ducked inside one of them, hoping to survey the fence area from cover.
But the building turned out not to be empty at all. Even though the insides were in even worse shape than the outsides—large chunks of plaster hung from the dilapidated ceiling, and the floor had more tin patches than boards—it was being used as a base hospital.
A skinny man with narrow, close-set eyes looked up from his desk as we entered, silently asking why we had come.
Red snapped into nurse mode, saying that I had a stomach ailment and needed to rest. I began to moan. The man gave me a malingerer’s frown, but nodded and told me to go into the wardroom.
About a dozen men filled the large, open ward beyond the reception area. They were scattered in beds and chairs around the place, possibly to minimize the chances of each man infecting the other, though it was also possible they’d been placed that way to make it harder for them to compare notes on their treatment.
A fireplug of a nurse was working at the far corner of the room. Florence Nightingale she wasn’t; she glared in my direction, then barked that I should lie down and not make any noise until she got there.
“Great bedside manner,” whispered Red.
“See if you can find us some uniforms to get past the guards,” I told her. “Or IDs or something.”
Red spotted a large closet at the end of the room near where we’d come in and headed over toward it. Florence Nightingale, meanwhile, ambled in my direction. The floor trembled with each step.
“What is your problem?” she demanded in a tone several shades more severe than the one a hanging judge would use to deliver a death sentence.
“Ohhhh,” I said, bending over and clutching my stomach.
“If you’re going to throw up, don’t do it on my bedsheets,” she barked. “The bathroom is over there.”
I waddled, bent over, in its direction.
“And what are you doing?” Florence Nightingale asked Red.
“My friend needs a blanket,” she said, rummaging through the closet. There were several uniforms inside, with enough variety that she had hopes of actually getting something to fit us.
“We don’t have blankets.”
“What kind of infirmary is this?”
“One for sick people.”
Red marched to her indignantly.
“My friend is a hard worker—he drives a cement truck. His father was in the Revolution, side by side with the great leader. And this is how he is treated?”
Florence Nightingale spit on the ground.
“If I had a peso for every relative who marched shoulder to shoulder with el Comandante en Jefe, I would have enough money to build a villa in Miami.”
Florence spit again, then turned on her heel and stormed out.
“Sister Mercy is trying to give up smoking,” said the man in a bed nearby. “She’s off to have a smoke.”
“She’s pretty free with her tongue,” said Red, who was amazed not that the nurse felt as she did, but that she was willing to say it so freely.
“The news says Fidel is on his deathbed,” said the patient. “Though I bet he has a better room than this.”
“Maybe he has three Sister Mercy’s,” said another patient. “One for each shift. He deserves it.”
The other laughed. The men began trying to top each other with descriptions of what Sister Mercy would do to Fidel to ease his pain.
Emptying his bedpan wasn’t on the list.
Red ducked back into the closet and grabbed the uniforms, tucking them under her arm. I grabbed a towel and buried my face in it, pretending that I was queasy as I came out of the restroom. As soon as I saw she was ready, I put my head down and walked toward the exit.
“Much better,” I said, passing the attendant.
“Nurse usually has that effect on people,” he said smugly.
The uniforms made us less conspicuous, but they couldn’t get us onto Fidel’s side of the complex. There were two more fences to cross, with a narrow track for a patrol vehicle but apparently no mines, since the vehicle whipped right across the track without anything exploding.
Near the water, the fence was interrupted by a double-wide gate and a freshly paved macadam apron showing where a road was intended to go. A video camera and a magnetic card-reader guarded the gate.
When setting up their security, the Cubans had undoubtedly thought of the video camera as the keystone of the system, arranging it so it could swivel and provide a wide view of the area. Naturally in their minds the view made it impossible for anyone to sneak inside. But the camera was actually their greatest weakness. It focused all of their attention exactly where it shouldn’t be.
On the good-looking redhead whose magnetic card wasn’t working right when she went to open the gate, for example.
“Senorita, you have to swipe your card with the flick of your wrist,” said one of the guards over the nearby speaker.
Red shrugged, then tried again. When the gate didn’t open, she looked up at the camera and pleaded that there was something wrong.
Red has perfect pleading eyes, but it was more likely that the loose buttons on her shirt and the consequent glimpse of cleavage had more of an effect on the camera monitor. He promised that he would call a supervisor to help.
“Can’t you just open the gate?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he said. “Your pass must be authorized.”
“But it is.”
“I can’t tell that from here.”
“No?”
Give the Cuban his due; despite the eyeful he was getting, he didn’t budge. Neither did the supervisor, who didn’t believe her story that she had been sent to help fix the problems in the security jeep.
“There are no problems with the jeep.”
“I only do what I am told.”
“Report to the barracks,” said the supervisor. “We will get this straightened out.”
Red threw up her hands in disgust, then stomped away from the camera.
One woman’s stomp was another’s sashay, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Red had their full attention as she walked away. But by now her diversion was unnecessary—I’d climbed both sets offences and was making my way to the bunker. I hiked up the hill about a hundred yards, then cut across to the left, avoiding a second camera covering the front yard and surrounding area.
A garden and a pool sat immediately below the bunker, added by the Estonian architect as an executive amenity: a patio Fidel could doze on while fantasizing about the destruction of America. El Jefe valued his privacy—maybe he liked to sunbathe out there in the nude—and so there were no video cameras. According to the CIA briefing, a three-foot-wide pressure-sensitive strip ran around the exterior of the garden. I moved toward the garden slowly, trying to see if the strip was marked out in any way.
A low, spiked iron fence ran around th
e perimeter, and it was logical to conclude that the strip was on one side or the other of the fence. But which? Jumping three feet would be easy. Six feet would be harder, especially since the uphill, rocky terrain made it hard to get much of a running start. And since the fence was barely a half foot off the ground and consisted entirely of spikes, I couldn’t use it to rest on in the middle.
Whoever had disguised the strip had done an excellent job. Rocks and small bushes had been planted on both sides of the fence, in a very random pattern. Finally, I decided I had no choice but to jump the entire distance. I planned my approach, took one last look around, then took off, head down as I counted my steps. On three, I leapt forward, sailing upward.
I was just about even with the fence when I saw the pebble trail that ran around the inside perimeter, a short distance from the fence.
The three-foot-wide pebble trail, undoubtedly placed to disguise or mark the pressure-sensitive detection band.
The pebble trail I was about to land on, heavy feet first.
Doom on Dickie.
I shifted my weight backward, trying to land short of the pebbles. It was an extremely acrobatic maneuver, but it was also a severe pain in the butt, as I crashed to the ground brain-first. Somehow, I managed to keep my legs in the air, a few inches over the strip of pebbles.
Rear end throbbing, I rolled over and went to the building. A covered patio extended roughly ten feet into the mountainside; at the rear was a set of large sliding glass doors. According to the CIA informant, these were equipped with alarms. So were the windows on the second floor.
The third-story windows, however, were not. I picked out the one on the corner, which according to the plans belonged to a small study, and then climbed upward. The ample space between the blocks made this easy. The casement window was locked, but it gave way easily when I slid my knife inside. I bent around it and pulled myself into the room.
RW15 - Seize the Day Page 11