Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

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by Cuba (lit)


  the wheelhouse door and carefully stepped inside.

  The captain worked the wheel with an eye on the

  compass. The faint glow from the binnacle and the engine

  RPM indicator were the only lightsthey cast a

  faint glow on the captain's face and that of Diego

  Coca, who was wedged

  in beside him, the gun still in his hand. Both men were facing

  forward, looking through the window at the sheets of spray

  being flung up when the bow smacked into a swell with

  an audible thud. The shock of those collisions could be

  felt through the deck and walls of the wheelhouse.

  "You are suicidalea"...the captain shouted at

  Diego. "The sea will get worse when we reach the

  Gulf Stream. We are only a mile or two from

  it!"

  Diego backed up, braced himself against the aft

  wall of the tiny compartment, pointed the pistol in the

  center of the captain's back. He held up his hand

  to hold off Ocho.

  "You took the moneyea"...Diego said accusingly to the

  captain.

  "Don't be a fool, man."

  "America!

  Or I shoot you, as God is my witness."

  "You want to dro'wn out here, in this watery hell?"

  "You took the moneyff"...Diego shouted.

  Ocho stepped forward and Diego pointed the pistol

  at him. "Backea"...he said. "Get back. I

  don't want to shoot you, but I will."

  Ocho Sedano leaned disforward. "I think they are

  right, what they say. You

  are

  crazy. You will kill every man and woman on this

  boat. Even the babies."

  "The boat is overloadedea"...the captain said without

  looking at Ocho. "We have to get some weight off.

  Throw the fishing gear over, the baggage, everything."

  Ocho pulled the door open and stepped out onto the

  pitching deck. He took Dora from the fisherman,

  pushed her into the wheelhouse, and pulled the door

  until it latched.

  "We must get rid of some weight. Everything goes

  overboard but the people."

  The fisherman nodded, took the bags near

  his feet and threw them into the white foam being thrown out

  by the bow. Then he grabbed Ocho's bag and tossed it

  disbbf the young man could stop him.

  Madre mia!

  Walking on that bucking deck was difficult. Ocho

  made

  his way forward, picking up every sack and box in reach

  and throwing it into the sea. Some people protested, grabbed

  their belongings and tried to prevent their loss, but he was

  too strong. He tore the bags from the women's

  grasp and heaved heavy boxes as if they were empty.

  Up the deck he went toward the bow, drenched every time

  the bow went in, throwing everything he could get his hands

  on into the foam created by the bow's passage.

  Other people were throwing things too. Soon the deck

  contained only the people, who huddled in small groups,

  their backs to the spray. The nets- hanging on the

  mast were lowered to the deck, men put into the sea and cut

  loose.

  Near the bow the motion was vicious. The salt sea

  spray slamming back almost took him off his feet.

  He caught himself on a line that stabilized the mast,

  then worked his way aft holding on to the rail.

  He thought the boat was riding easier, but

  maybe it was only his imagination.

  Then they got into the Gulf Stream. The swells

  grew progressively larger, the motion of the boat

  even more vicious.

  How much of this could the boat take?

  People cried out, praying aloud, lifted their hands

  to heaven. He could hear the women wailing over the

  rumbling of the engine, the pounding of the sea.

  He tried the door to the wheelhouse.

  Locked!

  He rattled the knob, twisted it fiercely,

  pulled with all his strength.

  "Open up, Diego."

  He pounded futilely on the door.

  Six people were huddled in the lee of the tiny wheelhouse,

  blocking the door. One of them was Dora. He

  leaned over her, pounded futilely on the door with his

  fist.

  He looked down at Dora, who had her head

  down.

  Frustrated, drained, sick of himself and Diego and

  Dora,

  he found a spot against the aft wall of the wheelhouse

  and buried his head in his arms to keep the spray from his

  face.

  He was drifting, thinking of his mother, reviewing scenes

  from his childhood when Mercedes shook him awake.

  Still under the influence of the painkilling drugs, Fidel

  Castro opened his eyes to slits and blinked

  mightily against the dim light.

  "Maximo is here, Fidel, as you asked."

  He tried to chase away the past, to come back to the

  present. His mouth was dry, his tongue like cotton.

  "Time?"

  "Almost midnight."

  He nodded, looked around the room at the walls, the

  ceiling, the dark shapes of people and furniture. He

  couldn't see faces.

  "A light."

  She reached for the switch.

  When his eyes adjusted, he saw Maximo standing in

  the shadows. He motioned with a finger. Yes, it was

  Maximo: now he could see his features.

  "Mi amigo."

  "Senor Presidente,"

  Maximo said.

  "Closer, in the light."

  Maximo Sedano knelt near the bed.

  "I don't have much time left to meea"...Castro

  explained. His mouth was so numb that he was

  having trouble enunciating his words.

  "I want the money brought back."

  "To Cuba?"

  "Yes. All of it."

  "You will have to sign and put your thumbprints on the

  transfer cards."

  "The money was never mine, you understand."

  "I had faith in you,

  Senor Presidente.

  We all had faith."

  "Faith..."

  "I will go to my office now, then return."

  "Mercedes will admit you."

  Ocho Sedano was soaked to the skin, covered with

  vomit from the woman beside him, when he heard the cry.

  Holding onto the wheelhouse wall with one hand and the

  net boom mast with the other, he levered himself erect,

  braced himself against the motion of the boat.

  Waves were washing over the bow, which seemed to be lower

  in the water. The bow wasn't rising to the sea the way

  it did when he sat down an hour ago, or maybe

  the waves were just higher.

  Someone was against the rail, pointing aft.

  "Man overboard!"

  "Madre mia,

  have mercy!"

  Another swell came aboard and two people braced

  against the lee rail were swept into, the sea as the

  boat rolled.

  Ocho turned to the wheelhouse, pulled people from against the

  door and savagely twisted the latch handle. He

  pounded on the door with his left fist.

  "Let me in, Diego! So help me, I will

  kill you if you don't turn the boat around."

  The bow began turning to put the wind and swells more

  astern.

>   A muffled report came from inside the wheelhouse.

  Ocho braced himself, then rammed his left fist against

  the upper panel of the door. The wood splintered, his

  fist went through almost to hisstelbow. He reached down,

  un less-than - latched the door, jerked it open.

  The captair caret lay on the floor. Diego

  Coca stood braced against the back wall, his hands

  discovering his face. The pistol was nowhere in sight.

  The wheel snapped back and forth as the seas slammed

  at the rudder.

  Ocho bent down to check the captain.

  He had a wet place in the middle of his back,

  right between his shoulder blades. No pulse.

  At least the boat seemed more stable with the, swells behind

  it.

  STEPHEN

  COONTS

  For how long? How long would the engine keep running?

  The fisherman opened the door, saw Ocho at the

  wheel, the dark shape lying on die floor.

  "Is he dead"..."...the man shouted.

  "Yes."

  "We must put out a sea anchor in case the engine

  stops. If the boat turns broadside to the sea,

  it will be swamped."

  "Can you do it?"

  "I will get men to helpea"...the fisherman said, and

  closed what was left of the door.

  A great lassitude swept over Ocho Sedano.

  His sin with the girl had brought all of these people here

  to die, had brought them to this foundering boat in a rough,

  windswept night sea with a million cold stars

  looking down without pity.

  Then he realized that the forward deck was empty.

  Empty!

  The people were gone. Into the sea... that must be it! They were

  swept overboard.

  "Ocho."

  Diego put his hand on the young man's shoulder,

  gripped hard.

  "I didn't mean

  to

  shoot him. As God is my witness, I did not

  mean for this to happen. It was an accident."

  Ocho swept the hand away.

  He pointed through the glass"...at the forward deck.

  "They are gone! Look.

  The people are gone!"

  "I did not mean for this to happenea"...Diego repeated

  mechanically.

  "What"..."...Ocho demanded. "What disdid you not intend?

  For the captain to die? For your daughter to drown at

  sea? For all of those people on that deck to die? What

  did you not intend, Diego?"

  Oh, my God, that this should happen!

  "Answer

  me!"

  he roared at Diego Coca, who refused to look

  forward through the wheelhouse windshield.

  "Look, you bastardea"...Ocho ordered through clenched

  teeth, and grabbed the smaller man by the

  neck. He rammed his head forward against the glass.

  "See what your greed and stupidity have cost."

  Then he threw Diego Coca to the floor.

  The impact of the disaster bowed Ocho's head, bent his

  back, emptied his heart. Diego's guilt did

  not lessen his, and oh, he knew that well. He,

  Ocho Sedano, was

  guilty.

  His lust had set this chain of events in motion. He

  felt as if he were trying to support the weight of the

  earth.

  Maximo Sedano's office in the finance ministry

  reflected his personal taste. The furniture was

  simple, deceptively so. The woods were

  hardwoods from the Amazon rain forest, crafted in

  Brazil by masters. Little souvenirs from his travels

  across Europe and Latin America sat on the

  desk and credenza and hung on the walls, small

  things of little value because expensive trinkets would be

  impolitic.

  He turned on the light, then walked to the huge

  floor safe, which he unlocked attd opened. He

  found the drawer he wanted, removed a stiff

  document envelope, took it to his desk and

  adjusted the light.

  With the contents of the envelope spread out on the highly

  polished mahogany, Maximo Sedano paused and

  looked around the room with unseeing eyes. He

  blinked several times, then leaned back in his chair and

  stretched.

  There were four bank accounts in Switzerland, all

  controlled by Fidel Castro. The last time

  Maximo computed the interest, the amount in the accounts

  totaled $53 million. Castro had been very

  specific when the accounts were opened years ago; the

  accounts were to be denominated in United States

  dollars. This choice had worked out extraordinarily

  well through the years as the currencies of every other

  major trading nation underwent major inflation or

  devaluation. The United States dollar was the

  modern-day equivalent of gold, although it would

  certainly be poor pol-

  COONTS

  itics for any member of the Castro regime to say

  so publicly.

  Fifty-three million dollars.

  Quite a sum.

  Enough to live extraordinarily well for a millennium

  or two.

  Fidel kept that little nest egg in

  Switzerland just in case things went wrong here in this

  communist paradise and he had to skedaddle. No

  sense living on government charity in some other

  squalid communist paradise, like Poland or

  Russia or the Ukraine, when a little prior

  planning could solve the whole problem. So Fidel

  rat-holed a fortune where only he could get at it

  and slept soundly at night.

  Now he wanted the money back in Cuba.

  Not that the money ever really belonged to the Cuban

  government. The money came from drug dealers, fees

  for using Cuban harbors for sanctuary, fees for

  being able to send shipments directly to Cuba,

  stockpile the drugs, then ship them on when the time was

  right.

  The money was really just Castro's personal share of the

  drug fees. An even larger chunk of the profits

  had gone to army, navy and law enforcement personnel,

  all of them, every man in the country who wore a

  uniform had been paid; another chunk went

  to Castro's lieutenants and political allies.

  Maximo had received almost a half million

  dollars himself. All in all, the deals with the drug

  syndicates had been good public policythe drug

  business was highly profitable, giving

  Castro money to buy loyalty and so remain in

  power, and the business corrupted America, which he

  hated. Ah, yes, the money came from the United

  States despite the best efforts of the American

  government to prevent it. Fidel had savored that

  irony too.

  Fifty-three million.

  Maximo pursed his. lips as he thought about the

  life of luxury and privilege that a fortune that

  size would buy. The money could be invested, some

  hotels, bank stock, invested to earn a nice

  income without touching the principal.

  He could stay in the George V in Paris, ski

  in St. Moritz, shop in London and Rome and

  yacht all over the Mediterranean.

  God, it was tempting!

  Fifty-three million.

&
nbsp; All he had to do was get Castro's thumbprint on

  the transfer order. Without that thumbprint, the banks

  would not move a solitary dollar.

  Really, those Swiss banks ... Maximo had

  urged Castro to transfer the money to Spanish and

  Cuban banks for months, ever since the dictator

  was diagnosed with cancer. If he died with the

  money still in Switzerland, prying money out of those

  banks was going to be like peeling fresh paint from a

  wall with fingernails. And the drug dealers thought their

  racket was profitable!

  But why be a piker? Why settle for $53

  million when there was a lot more, somewhere?

  From his pocket he removed a coin, a gold

  five-peso coin dated 1915. There was a

  portrait of Josd Marti on one side and the

  crest of Cuba on the other.

  Gold circulated in Cuba until the

  revolution, until Fidel and the communists declared it

  was no longer legal tender and called it in, allowing

  the peso to float on the world market.

  Maximo rubbed the gold coin with his fingers. By his

  calculations, based upon Ministry of Finance

  records, almost 1.2 million ounces of gold were

  surrendered to the government in return for paper

  money.

  One million, two hundred thousand ounces ...

  about thirty-seven

  tons

  of gold. On the world market, that thirtyseven tons

  of gold should be worth about $360 million.

  A man who could get his hands on that hoard

  would be on easy street for the rest of his life.

  Yes, indeed.

  The only problem was finding it. It wasn't in the

  Finance Ministry vaults, it wasn't in the

  vaults of the Bank of Cuba, on account at

  banks in Switzerland or London or New

  York or Mexico City ... it was gone!

  Thirty-seven tons of gold, vanished into thin

  air.

  If a man could lay hands on that gold... well,

  Alejo Vargas and Hector Sedano could fight

  over the presidency of Cuba, and may the better

  man win. Maximo would take the gold. If he

  could find it.

  He had a few ideas about where it might be. In

  fact, he had been quietly researching the problem

  since he took over the Finance Ministry. Eight

  years of ransacking files, talking to old

  employees, looking at clues, thinking about the

  problemthe gold had to be in Cuba, in Havana.

  Thirtyseven tons of gold.

  A-life of ease and luxury in the spas of

  Europe, mingling with the rich and famous, surrounded

  by beautiful women and the best of everything ...

 

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