by Cuba (lit)
But first the $53 million.
He would type the account numbers on the transfer
orders and the accounts the money was to be transferred
to. He would use the secretary's typewriter.
He had the account numbers written in the notebook
he removed from the safe. He flipped through the
notebook now, found the page, stared at the
numbers.
How closely would Fidel check the order?
The man is sick, drugged, dying. He is barely
conscious. Unless he has the numbers of the accounts in
the Bank of Cuba by his bedside, he 'II be
none the wiser.
But what if he does? What if he has the
numbers written down in a book or diary and hands
the transfer order to Mercedes to check? What then?
Fifty-three million. More money than God
has.
He remembered the old days when he was young, when
Castro walked the earth like Jesus Christ with a
Cuban accent. Ah, the fire of the revolution, how
the true believers were going to change the world!
Instead, time changed them, America bled them, and
life defeated them.
Maximo had been loyal to Fidel and the
revolution. No one could ever say he was
not. He had been with Fidel
since he was twenty-four years old, just back from the
university in Spain. He had endured the good times
and the bad, never uttered a single word of criticism.
He had faith in Fidel, proclaimed it
publicly and demanded it of others.
Now Castro was dying. In just a few days he would be
beyond regrets.
Fifty-three million.
The pounding the overloaded boat had taken buckjng
the heavy Gulf Stream swells opened the seams
somewhat, and now the fisherman was pumping out the water
with the bilge pump, which received its power from the
enginedriven generator.
"As long as we can keep the engine running, as long
as the seams don't open any more than they are,
we'll be all right."
"How much fuel do we have on board?"
The fisherman went to check.
Ocho was at the helm, steering almost due east. With the
wind and sea behind her, the
Angel del Mar
rode better. Now the motion was a rocking as the
swells swept under the stern. Very little roll from"
side to side.
Of the eighty-four people who had been aboard when the
boat left the harbor in Cuba, twenty-six
remained alive. The captain's body lay against the
wheelhouse wall.
Ocho found Diego's pistol and put it in his
belt. He physically carried Diego from the
wheelhouse and tossed him on the deck.
Fifty-seven living human beings, men, women, and
babies, had gone into the sea. There was no way in the
world to go back to try to rescue them. Even if he
and the fisherman could find those people in the water, in the
darkness, in this sea, the pounding of heading back into the
swells would probably cause the boat to take on
more water, endangering the lives of those who remained
aboard.
No, the people swept overboard were lost to their fate,
whatever that might be.
The living twenty-six would soon join them, Ocho
told himself. The boat was heading east, away from
Florida.
Perhaps if the sea calmed somewhat, they should bring the
boat to a more southerly heading and return to Cuba.
That, he decided, was their only chance.
Cuba. They would have to return.
Why wait? Every sea mile increased the
likelihood of the engine quitting or the boat
sinking.
He turned the helm a bit, worked the boat's bow
to a more southerly heading. The roll became, more
pronounced. The wind came more over the right stern
quarter.
How long until dawn? An hour or two?
The door to the wheelhouse opened. Diego was standing
there, the whites of his eyes glistening in the dim
light. "Turn back toward Florida! No one
wants to go back to Cuba."
"It's the only way. We'll all die trying
to make it to Florida in this sea."
"I was dead in Cuba all those yearsea"...Diego
Coca shouted. "I refuse to go go back! I
refuse."
Ocho hit him in the mouth. One mighty jab with his
left hand as he twisted his body, so all his weight
was behind the punch. Diego went down backward, hit
his head on the deck coaming, and lay still.
Dora wailed, crawled toward her unconscious
father.
Ocho closed the door to the wheelhouse, brought the
boat back to its southeast heading.
Soon the door opened again and the fisherman
stepped inside. "We have fuel for another ten or
twelve hours. No more than that."
"We'll be back hi Cuba then."
caret That's our only chance."
The stars in the east were fading when the engine quit.
After trying for a minute to start the engine, the fisherman
dashed below.
Ocho abandoned the helm. The boat rolled
sickeningly in the swells.
At least the swells were smaller than they were earlier
in the night, m the middle of the Gulf Stream.
The fisherman came up on deck after fifteen
minutes, his clothes soaked in diesel fuel.
"It's no useea"...he said. "The engine has had it."
"What about the water in the bilges? Is it still coming
in?"
"We'll "have to take turns on the hand pump."
"What are we going to do about the engine"..."...Ocho asked.
The fisherman didn't reply, merely stood
looking at the swells as the sky grew light in the
east.
The van drove up to the massive,
250-feet-tall extra-highvoltage tower beside the
drainage canal on the southern outskirts
of Havana and backed up toward it. The base of the
tower was surrounded by a ten-foot-high-chain link fence
with barbed wire on top. The access door in the
fence was, of course, padlocked.
The driver of the van and his passenger were both wearing
one-piece overalls. They stretched, looked at the
wires far above, and scratched their heads while they
surveyed the ramshackle four-story apartment
buildings that backed up to the canal. One of the men
extracted a pack of cigarettes from his overalls
and lit one. The nearest apartments were at least sixty
meters away, although for safety reasons the distance
should have been much more. Each of the extra-high-voltage
(Ehv) lines overhead carried 500,000
volts.
The driver of the van was Enrique Poveda. His
passenger was Arquimidez Cabrera. Both men were
citizens of the United States, sons of Cuban
exiles, and bitter enemies of the Castro regime.
Poveda had parked the van so that the rear doors, when
open, almost touched the gate in the chain-link fence.
Now he reached into the van, seized a set of bolt
cutters, an
d applied the jaws to the padlock on the
gate. One tremendous squeeze and the bar of the
padlock snapped.
Cabrera threw the remnants of the padlock into the
back of the van. He opened the gate in the fence,
set a new, open padlock on the hasp, and stood
looking up at the tower.
The best way to cut the power lines the tower carried
would be to climb the tower and set shaped charges around the
insulators. Unfortunately, the lines carried so
much juice that the hot zones around the wires were
eleven feet in diameter, more in humid weather.
No, the only practical way to cut the lines was
to drop the towers, which would not be difficult. A shaped
charge on each leg should do the job nicely.
Cabrera looked at the angle of the wires leading
into the tower, and the angle away. Yes, once the
legs were severed, the weight and tension of the line should
pull the tower down to the side away from the canal,
into this open area, where the lines would either short out on the
ground or break from the strain of carrying their own
weight.
Timing the explosions would be a problem. This close
to all that energy, a radio-controlled electrical
detonator was out of the question. Chemical timers would be
best, ones that ignited the detonators after a
preset time, although chemical timers were not as
precise as mechanical ones.
All that was for a later day, however. The decision on
when the tower must come down had yet to be made, so today
Cabrera and Poveda would merely set the charges.
They would return later to set the timers and
detonators.
Poveda finished his cigarette and strapped on his
tool belt. This was the fourth tower today. Only this
one and one more to go.
"You ready"..."...he asked Cabrera.
"Let's do it."
Ocho Sedano lived with his older brother Julio,
Julio's wife, and their two children in a tiny apartment
atop a garage just a few hundred yards from Dona
Maria's house. Julio worked in the garage
repairing American cars. The cars were antiques
from the 1950's and there were no spare parts, so Julio
made parts or cannibalized them from the carcasses
behind the garage, cars too far gone for any mechanic
to save. When he wasn't playing baseball,
Ocho helped.
Hector found his brother Julio working in the shop
by the light of several naked bulbs. "Where is
Ocho?"
"Gone."
"Gone where?"
Julio was replacing the valves of an ancient
straight eight under the hood of an Oldsmobile.
The light was terrible, but he was working by feel so it
didn't really matter. He straightened now,
scowled at his older brother.
"He has gone to try his luck in America."
"You didn't try to stop him?"
Julio looked about at the dimly lit shop, the
dirt floor, the shabby old cars. He wiped his
hands on a dirty rag that hung from his belt.
"No, I didn't."
"What if he drowns out there in the Gulf Stream?"
"I have prayed for him."
"That's it? Your little brother? A prayer?"
"What do you think I should have done, Hector?
Tell the boy that he was living smack in the middle
of a communist paradise, that he should be happy here,
happy with his labor and his crust? Bah! He
wants something more from life, something for himself, for his
children."
"If he dies"
"Look around you, Hector. Look at this
squalid, filthy hovel. Look at the way we
live! Most of Cuba lives this way,
except for a precious few like dear Maximo, who
eats the bread that other men earn. You saw him
yesterday at Mima'snothing's too good for our
dedicated revolutionary, Maximo Sedano,
Fidel's right-hand ass-wipe man,"
Julio snorted scornfully, then leaned back under
the hood of the Olds. "I told Ocho to go with
God. I pfayed for him."
"What if he dies out there?"
"Everybody has to dieyou, me, Fidel, Ocho,
all of usthat's just the way it is. They ought to teach
you that in church. At least if Ocho dies he
won't have to listen to any more of Fidel's bullshit.
He won't have to listen to
yours, either. God knows, bullshit is the only thing
on this island wecomh a lot of."
"Have you told
Mima
that he left?"
"I was going to keep my mouth shut until I had
something to tell her."...Julio turned his head to look
at Hector around the edge of the car's hood. "Ocho
is a grown man. He has taken his life in his
own two hands, which is his right. He'll
live or die. He'll get to America or he
won't."
"He should have waited. I asked him to wait."
"For what"..."...Julio demanded.
Hector turned to leave the garage.
"What are we waiting for, Hector? The second
coming?"
Julio came to the door and called after Hector as
he walked away down the street: "How long do I
have to wait to feed my sons? Tell me! I have
waited all my life. I am sick and tired of
waiting. I want to know
nowhow much longer?"
Hector turned in the road and walked back toward
Julio. "Enough!
Enough!"
he roared, his voice carrying. "You squat here in this
hovel waiting for life to get better, waiting for
someone else to make it better! You have no courage
you are not a man! If the future depends on
rabbits like you Cuba will always be a sewer!"
Then Hector turned and stalked away, his head
down, his shoulders bent forward, as if he were walking
into a great wind.
The Officers' Club at Guantanamo
Bay Naval Station was sited on a small hill
overlooking the harbor. From the patio Toad
Tarkington and Rita Moravia could see the carrier
swinging on her anchor near the mouth of the bay.
These days the O Club was usually sparsely
populated. The base was now a military
backwater, no longer a vital part of the U.s.
military establishment. For the last few years the
primary function of the base was to house Cuban
refugees picked up at sea.
Still, the deep blue Caribbean water and low yellow
bills
under a periwinkle sky packed picture-postcard
charm. With cactus and palm trees and magnificent
sunny days, the place reminded Toad of southern
California. If the Cubans ever got their act
together politically, he thought, this place would boom like
southern California, with condos and high-tech
industries sprouting like weeds. Hordes of people waving
money would come here from Philly and New Jersey
to retire. This place had Florida beat all
to hell.
He voiced this opinion to Rita, the only other
person on th
e patio. It was early in the afternoon; the
two of them had ridden the first liberty boat
in after the ship anchored. Jake Grafton sent them
packing because today was their anniversary.
They had a room reserved at the BOQ for tonight.
They intended to eat a relaxed dinner at the club,
just the two of them, then retire for a private
celebration.
"The Cubans may not want hordes from Philly
and Hoboken and Ashtabula moving inea"...Rita
objected.
"I wouldn't mind having a little place in one of these
villages around here my own selfea"...Toad said,
gesturing vaguely to the west or north. "Do some
fishing, lay around getting old and fat and tan, let
life flow by. Maybe build a golf course,
spend my old age selling balls and watering
greens. This looks like world-class golf country
to me. Aaah, someday."
"Someday, busterea"...Rita said, grinning. Toad
liked to entertain her with talk about retirement, about
loafing away the days reading novels and newspapers
and playing golf, yet by ten o'clock on a lazy
Sunday morning in the States he was bored stiff.
He played golf once every other year, if it
didn't rain.
Now he sipped his beer and inhaled a few
mighty lungfuls of this clean, clear, perfect
air. "Feel that sun! Ain't life delicious,
woman?"
They had a nice dinner of Cuban cuisine, a
fresh fish, beans and rice. By that time the club was
filling up with junior officers from the squadrons
aboard ship, in for lib-
erty. The noise from the bars was becoming raucous when
Toad and Rita finished their dinner and headed back
to the patio with cups of coffee.
"Maybe I better check on my
chicksea"...Rita said, and detoured for the bar.
Toad paused in the doorway, staring into the dark
room, which was made darker by the brilliant sunlight
shining outside the windows.
"Commander Tarkingtonff"...Two of the young pilots
came over to where Toad stood with his coffee cup.
"Join us for a few minutes, won't you? We're
drinking shooters. Have one with us."
Rita was already standing by the table. Toad allowed
himself to be persuaded.
A trayful of brimming shot glasses sat on
the small round table. As Toad watched, one of these
fools set the liquor in the glasses on fire
with a butane cigarette lighter.
"Okay, Commander, show us how it's done!"
Toad looked at Rita, who was studying him with a
noncommittal raised eyebrow.