by Cuba (lit)
graveyard of a great many martyrs. There is room
here for Vargas to bury us both."
He was remembering the good days, the days when he had
been young, under a bright sun, surrounded by happy,
laughing comrades.
All things had been possible back then. Bullets
couldn't touch them, no one would betray them
to Batista's men, they would save Cuba, save her
people, make them prosperous and healthy and strong and
happy. Oh, yes,
when we were young
...
As he tossed and turned, fighting the pain,
snatches of scenes ran through his mind; student
politics at the University of Havana, the
assault on the Moncada Barracks in
Santiago, guns banging and bullets spanging
off steel, off masonry, singing as they whirled
away.... He remembered the firelights on the
roads, riding the trucks through the countryside,
evenings making plans with Che and the others, how Jhey
would set things right, kick out the capitalists who had
enslaved Cuba for centuries.
Che, he had been a true believer.
And there were plenty more. True believers all.
Ignorant as virgins, penniless and hungry, they
thought they could fix the world.
In his semiconscious state he could hear his own
voice making speeches, explaining, promising
to fix things," to heal the people, put them to work, give
them jobs and houses and medical care and a future for
their children.
Words. All words.
Wind.
He coughed, and the coughing brought him fully awake.
The nurse was there in the chair watching him.
"Leave me, woman."
She left the room.
He pulled himself higher in the bed, used a corner
of the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face.
The sheets were thin, worn out. Even
el presidents"?,
sheets were worn out!
A sick joke, that.
Everything in the whole damned country was broken or
worn out, including Castro's sheets. You didn't
have to be a high government official to be aware of that
hard fact.
On the dresser just out of reach was a box of cigars.
He hitched himself around in bed, reached for one, then
leaned far over and got his hand on the lighter.
The pain made him gasp.
Madre mia!
When the pain subsided somewhat he lay back in the
bed, wiped his face again on the sheet.
He fumbled with the cigar, bit off the end and spat it
on the floor. Got the lighter going, sucked on the
cigar... the raw smoke was like a knife in his
throat. He hacked and hacked.
The doctors made him give up cigars ten years
ago. He demanded this box two days ago,
when they told him he was dying. "If I am dying,
I can smoke. The cancer will kill me before the
cigars, so why not?"
When the coughing subsided, he took a tiny puff
on the cigar, careful not to inhale.
God, the smoke was delicious.
Another puff.
He lay back on the pillow, sniffed the aroma of the
smoke wafting through the air, inhaled the tobacco
essence and let it out slowly as the cigar smoldered in
his hand.
The truth was that he had made a hash of it.
Cuba's
problems had defeated him. Oh, he had done the
best he could, but by any measure, his best hadn't
been good enough. The average Cuban was worse off
today than he had been those last few years under
Batista. Food was in short supply, the
economy was in tatters, the bureaucrats were openly
corrupt, the social welfare system was falling
apart, and the nation reeled under massive short-term
foreign debt, for it had defaulted on its
long-term international debt in the late 1980's.
The short-term debt could not be repudiated, not if
the nation ever expecte'd to borrow another
peso abroad.
He puffed on the cigar, savoring the smoke. Then
he shifted, trying to make the ache in his bowels
ease up.
Of course he knew what had gone wrong. When he
took over the nation he had played the cards he had
... evicted the hated Yanqui
imperialistas
and seized their property, and accepted the cheers and
adulation of the people for delivering them from the oppressor.
Unfortunately Cuba was a tiny, poor country,
so he had had to replace the evicted
patrdn
with another, and the only one in sight had been the
Soviet Union. He embraced communism, got
down on his knees and swore fealty to the Soviet
state. With that act he earned the undying hatred of the
politicians who ruled the United Statesafter
several assassination attempts and the ill-fated
Bay of Pigs invasion debacle, they declared
economic warfare on Cuba. Then the cruelest
twist of the knifethe Soviet Union collapsed in
1990-91 and Cuba was cut adrift.
Ah, he should have been wiser, should have realized that the
United States would be the winning horse.
The Spanish grandees had bled Cuba for
centuries, worked the people as slaves, then as peons.
After the Americans ran the Spanish off,
American corporations put their men in the manor
houses and life continued as before. The people were still slaves
to the cane crop, living in abject poverty, unable
to escape the company towns and the company stores.
A few things did change under the Americans. The
is-
land became America's red light district, the
home of the vice that was illegal on the American
mainland: gambling, prostitution, drugs, and, during
Prohibition, alcohol. Poor Catholic
families sent their daughters to the cities to whore
for the Yanquis.
The capitalists bled Cuba until there was no
blood left they would keep exploiting people the world
over until there were no more people. Or no more
capitalists. Until then, the capitalists would have
all the money. He should have realized that fundamental
truth.
He had grown up hating the United States,
hating Yanquis who drank and gambled and whored the
nights away in Havana. He hated their
diplomats, then- base at Guantanamo Bay,
their smugness, their money ... he despised them and
all their works, which was unfortunate, because America was
a fact of life, like shit, A man could not escape
it because it smelled bad.
God had never given him the opportunity to destroy
the Yanquis, because if He had ...
Fidel Castro was intensely, totally Cuban.
He personified the resentment the Cuban people felt
because they had spent their lives begging for the scraps that
fell from the rich men's table. Resentment was a vile
emotion, like hatred and envy.
Wellea"he was dying. Weeks, they said. A few
weeks, more or less. The cance
r was eating him
alive.
The painkillers were doing their jobat least he could
sit up, think rationally, smoke the forbidden cigars,
plan for Cuba's future.
Cuba had a future, even if he didn't.
Of course, the United States would play a
prominent role in that future. With the great devil
Fidel dead, all things were possible. The
economic embargo would probably perish with him, a
new
presidente
could bring ... what?
He thought about that question as he puffed gingerly on the
cigar, letting the smoke trickle out between his lips.
For years Americans had paraded through the govern-
ment offices in Havana talking about what might be
after the economic embargo was lifted by their
government. Always they had an angle, wanted a
special dispensation from the Cuban government... and were
willing to pay for it, of course. Pay handsomely.
Now. Paper promises ... He had enjoyed
taking their money.
He had made no plans for a successor, had
anointed no one. Some people thought his brother, Raul,
might take over after him, but Raul was
impotente,
a lightweight.
He would have to have his say now, while he was very much
alive.
But what should the future of Cuba be?
The pain in his bowels doubled him up. He curled
up in the bed, groaning, holding tightly to the cigar.
After a minute or so the pain eased somewhat and he
puffed at the cigar, which was still smoldering.
Whoever came after him was going to have to make his peace
with the United States. They were going to have to be
selective about America's gifts, rejecting the
bad while learning to profit from the good things, the
gifts America had to give to the world.
That had been his worst failinghe himself had never
learned how to safely handle the American
elephant, make the beast do his bidding. His
successors would have to for the sake of the Cuban people.
Cuba would never be anything if it remained a long,
narrow sugarcane field and way point for cocaine
smugglers. If that was all there was, everyone on the
island might as well set sail for Miami.
Maybe he should have left, said good-bye, thrown up
his hands and retired to the Costa del Sol.
Next time. Next time he would retire young, let
the Cubans make it on their own.
Like every man who ever walked the earth, Castro had
been trapped by his own mistakes. The choices
he made early in the game were irreversible. He
and the Cuban people had been forced to live with the
consequences. Life is like that, he reflected.
Everyone must make his choices,
wise or foolish, good or bad, and live with them;
there is no going back.
There is always the possibility of
redemption, of course, but one cannot unmake the past.
We have only the present. Only this moment.
When the pain came this time, the cigar dropped from his
fingers.
He lay in the bed groaning, trying not to scream for the
nurse. If he did, she would give him an
injection, which would put him to sleep. The needle was
going to give him peace during his final days, but he
wasn't ready for it yet.
The pain had eased somewhat when he felt a hand on
his forehead. He opened his eyes. Mercedes.
"You dropped your cigar on the floorea"...she
whispered.
"I know."
"Shall I call the nurse?"
"Not for a while."
She used a damp cloth to wipe the perspiration from his
face. The cloth felt good.
"Light the cigar."
She did so, put it in his hand. He managed one
tiny puff.
"You talked to Hector?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He was surprised. He didn't know it
would
be
so soon."
"That was your impression?"
"Yes."
"And the tobacco deal with the Americans? What did
Hector say when you told him about it?"
"Just listened."
"The birthday party, Maximo came?"
"Yes. Brought a box of French chocolates and his
wife, who wore a Paris frock."
Fidel's lips twisted. He could imagine what the
other people at the party thought of that. Maximo could charm
foreign bankers and squeeze a peso until it
squealed, but he was no politician.
"Did you warn Hector about Alejo?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He made light of it."
Fidel thought about that. Remembered the cigar and took
another puff.
"He thinks the threat will be the generalsea"...he said
finally, "but it won't. The generals don't know it,
but the troops will follow Hector. Alejo
Vargas is his most dangerous opponent,
and if Hector Sedano doesn't understand that, they will
bury him a few days after they bury me."
"Admiral, next weekend when we're in the
Virgin Islands, what say we put the barge in the
water and go waterskiing?"
The person asking the question was the admiral's aide, a
young lieutenant who flew an FirstA-18 on her
last cruise. Her boyfriend was still in one of the
Hornet squadrons; the last time Jake
Grafton approved the barge adventure, the
boyfriend was invited to go along.
Now Jake sighed. "I'm not sure where we're
going to be next weekend, Beth."...He had no
intention of getting very far from Guantanamo Bay
while those warheads were still in that warehouse, but of
course he couldn't say that. "Check with ops,
Commander Tarkington."
"Yes, sirea"...Beth said, trying to hide her
disappointment.
The new Chief of Staff, Captain Gil
Pascal, Toad Tarkington, and the admiral had
put their heads together, carefully listed the forces
available should an emergency arise, and drafted a
contingency plan. "Nothing's happened in all these
yearsea"...Jake told them, "but Washington
must have had a reason for telling us to keep an eye
on the place. They must know something we don't."
Gil Pascal met the admiral's gaze. He
had reported to the staff just a week ago. "Sir,
as I recall, the orders said to 'monitor" the
loading of the weapons onto the container ship."
""Monitor""..."...muttered Jake Grafton.
"What the hell does that mean? Is that some kind of
New Age bureaucrat word? It doesn't mean
anything."
"I guess my question really is, how much force are you
willing to use without authorization from Washington?"
A faint smile crossed the lips of Toad
Tarkington. Only a man who didn't know the
admiral would ask that question. Anyone who started
shooting in Jake Grafton's bailiwick had
better be ready for a war, Toad, thought. He had
&n
bsp; managed to wipe off the smile by the time the admiral
answered:
"Whatever it takes to keep those warheads in
American hands."
Pascal took his time ordering his thoughts. "Shouldn't
we be talking contingencies with Washington,
Admiral?"
Jake Grafton opened a top-secret message
folder that lay on his desk in front of him. "I
already sent a query to CNO. This is the answer."
He passed the message to Pascal. "Monitor
weapons onload diligently, using your best
judgmentea"...the message read, "but do not deviate from
normal routine. Revealing presence of chemical and
biological weapons in Cuba not in the national
interest. Risks of transfer have been carefully
considered at the highest level. Should risk
assessment change you will be informed."...The final sentence
referred to the original message.
"Five sentences"..."...Toad Tarkington asked when he
had had his chance to read the message. "Only five
sentences?"
Reading naval messages was an art, of course.
One had to consider the identity and personality of the
sender, the receiver, the situation, any correspondence
that had passed before.... The situation in Washington was
the unknown here, Jake concluded. If the CNO had
been at liberty to say more, he would have: Jake
knew the CNO. The lack of guidance or
illumination told Jake that the chief of naval
operations wanted him to be ready for anything.
"We'll have to do the best we can with what we
have,"
the admiral said now to Pascal and Tarkington. "I
want a plan: we need someone watching at all
times, a quick reaction force that can meet any initial
incursion with force, a reserve force to throw into the fray
to absolutely deny access, and flash messages
ready to go informing Washington of what we have done."
Toad and Gil Pascal nodded. A plan like this
with the forces that the admiral had at his disposal would be
simple to construct. No surprises there.
"There is always the possibility that we may not be able
to prevent hostiles from getting to the warheads, if they
choose to try. We also need a plan addressing that
contingency."
"Surely this nightmare won't come to passea"...Gil
Pascal said. "Your assessment of the risk differs
remarkedly from that of the National Security
Council."
"I'm sure the powers that be think it quite unlikely
anybody will try to prevent us from removing the
weapons from Cuba, and I agree. On the other