by Cuba (lit)
a headband, then stuck the light to the headband with a
piece of Velcro.
He checked his watch. It was 1:36 A.m.
He examined the lock, felt in the bag for his
picks.
Hmmm. This one, perhaps. He inserted it into the lock.
No.
This one? Yes.
The latex gloves didn't seem to affect his
feel for the lock.
Carmellini had always enjoyed pick work. The
exquisite feel necessary, the patience required, the
pressure of time usually, the treasure waiting to be
discovered on the other side of the door... the CIA
had been a damned lucky break. Without that break
he would have certainly wound up in prison sooner or
later when his luck ran out, because no one's luck
lasts forever.
He inserted a smaller pick, felt for the contacts
...
And twisted, using the strength of his fingers.
The bolt opened.
He stowed the picks, picked up the duffel bag, and
opened the door.
Dark office, with the only light coming through the windows,
the glow of headlights on the street below, somewhere the
flicker of a fire.
The safe sat in the corner away from the windows. It
was old, and huge, at least six feet tall,
three feet wide and three feet deep. Painted
on the door of the safe was a pas-
toral scene; above the landscape arranged in a
semicircle were the words "United Fruit
Company."
After a quick glance at the safe, Carmellini turned
his attention to the rest of the room. He searched quickly
and methodically. First the drawers of the desk. One of
them held a pistol, one a bottle of expensive
scotch whiskey and several glasses, one pens and
pencils and a blank pad of paper. Several lists
of names, phone numbers, addresses ...
The lower right drawer of the desk was locked. A
small, cheap furniture lock. He opened it with a
knife, began examining files. The files seemed
to be on senior people hi the government,
girlfriends, vices, lies told, bribes offered and
accepted, that kind of thing.
He flipped through the files quickly, stacked them on
the desk, and moved oa.
The crystals were on the windowsill. A rack of
books was below the window. A cursory check
revealed no files peeking out between the books.
The displays of old coins didn't even rate a
glance. Back before he worked for the government the coins
would have made his juices flow, but not now.
On to the credenza. Many files in there. Carmellini
sampled them, looking for anything on biology,
weapons, strange code names. When he saw something
he didn't understand he opened the file and glanced at
the papers inside. Peoplemost of these files were
on people. Unfortunately Tommy didn't
recognize the names. He added the files to the stack
on the desk.
Now he discame to the safe. They must have lifted it
to this floor with a crane before the windows
viere
installed, he thought He checked every square inch of the
exterior to see if the safe was wired. No
wires.
Tommy Carmellini tried the handle.
No.
Turned the circular combination dial ever so carefully
to the right, maintaining pressure on the handle. If the
safe
had been closed hastily, all the tumblers might not
have gone home. He took his time.
No. The safe was locked.
He checked his watch. Now 1:47.
The lights would come on soon, powered by the emergency
generator.
He opened the duffel bag and began extracting
items. The first item he removed was a
telescoping rod which he extended and positioned over
the safe's combination dial; he secured it there with
clamps placed on each side of the safe. Working
quickly, witiMio lost motion, he clamped a
small electric motor to the rod, then adjusted the
jaws protruding from the motor so that they grasped the
dial of the safe.
Other sensors were placed on the top, bottom,
left, and right sides of the safe door. These
sensors were held in place by magnets.
Wires led from the sensors and electric motor to a
small computer, which he now took from the bag and
turned on. There was one lead remaining, which
he connected to a twelve-volt battery which was also in
the bag.
As he waited for the computer to boot up he checked
all the leads one more tune. Everything okay.
Tommy"...Carmellini pursed his lips, as if he were
whistling.
This contraption was of his own design, and with it he could
open any of the older-style mechanical safes, if
he were given enough time. An electrical current
introduced into the door of the safe created a
measurable magnetic field. The rotation of the
tumblers inside the lock caused fluctuations in the
field, fluctuations that were displayed on the computer
screen. Finally, the computer measured the amount of
electric current necessary to turn the dial Of the
lock; an exquisitely sensitive measurement.
Using both these factors, the computer could determine
the combination that would open the safe.
Sitting cross-legged in front of the safe with the
com-
puter on his lap, Carmellini tugged the latex
gloves he was wearing tighter onto his hands, then
manually zeroed the dial of the lock. Now he started
the computer program.
The dial rotated slowly, silently,
driven by the electric motor clamped to the rod.
After a complete turn the dial stopped at 32.
The number appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the
screen. After a short pause, the dial turned to the
left, counterclockwise, as Carmellini grinned
happily.
In his mind's eye he could visualize the lock
plates rotating, the tumblers moving....
The line on the screen that tracked the magnetic
field twitched unexpectedly. Carmellini
frowned. He hadn't moved, the building was quiet
Another squiggle, so insignificant he almost
missed it And another.
Someone was coming. Someone was walking softly down the
hall; the sensors were picking up the shock waves of
their footfalls as the waves spread out through the
structure of the building.
Careful to make no noise at all, Tommy
Carmellini set the computer on the duffel bag,
stood up and moved over behind the door. As he did
he drew the Ruger from its holster under his shirt and
thumbed off the safety, then turned off the light
attached to his headband. Now he transferred the
pistol to his left hand. greater-than caret ith his
right he reached into a hip pocket and
extracted a sap, a flexible length of rubber with the
business end weighted with lead.
Th
e darkness appeared total as his eyes adjusted.
Gradually a bit of glare from headlights faintly
illuminated the room.
Carmellini had good ears, and he couldn't hear the
footfalls. He could hear the tiniest whine, however,
that the electric motor made as it turned the dial
of the lock, the distant honking of some vehicle
blocks away, and faintly, "ver so family, the
wail of a fire or police siren.
Tommy Carmellini stopped breathing, stopped
thinking,
stood absolutely frozen as the knob on the door
slowly turned, then the door began to open.
William Henry Chance walked slowly back and
forth hi front of less-than he glass doors that
marked the main entrance to the Ministry. The duty
officer and his two men were hi the basement, doing God
knows what to the emergency generator. Chance wondered
how long it had been since the generator had been
fueled, oiled, checked carefully, and started.
The second hand on his watch seemed frozen. He
checked his watch, walked, watched cars and trucks
pass by, adjusted his duty belt and
pistol, reset the cap on his head, strolled some
more, promised himself he wouldn't look at the luminous
hands on his watch, finally peeked anyway. A
minute. One lousy minute had passed.
Someone was coming along the sidewalk... a uniformed
guard carrying an AK-47 at high port. He
must be stationed at one of the side or rear entrances.
The man stopped, slightly startled, when he saw
Chance's figure standing in the door. Now he peered
closer. And saluted.
"Sir, I am looking for the'duty officer."
"He is hi the basement, starting the emergency
generator. Is there someone else at your post?"
"Uh, yessir. I was coming around to check if"
"I think you should stay at your post. The emergency
power for the building will come on in a-few minutes, then
you can make your request of the duty officer."
"Yeseamsir. But the last time we started that thing,
all the alarms went off, every one of them. The duty
officer always wanted the alarms off before he turned the
power back on."
"I am sure he will take care of that. He knows the
system."
"Yessir."
"And when was the emergency generator last
used, anyway?"
"The big storm last year, sir. Eight or nine
months ago, I think."
"Go back to your post."
"Yes, sir."...The man saluted, turned, and marched
down the sidewalk. Chance could hear his footsteps for
several seconds after he disappeared into the gloom.
The guy accepted him as Cuban, as had
Lieutenant G6mez and his men. If they only
knew the hundreds of hours of language classes
that Chance had endured to learn the accent, to get it
exactly right!
All in anticipation of a moment that might never come.
Yet the orders did arrive, and here he was,
walking around in the foyer of secret police
headquarters in Havana spouting Cuban Spanish
like Jose Marti.
He went to the guard's station, used his flashlight
to examine the equipment there. The video monitors
were of course blank, everything off, but where was the
tape? If the power came on while he was there he
didn't want to give Alejo Vargas a souvenir
videotape of the men who cracked his safe.
Ah, here was the videotape machine, hi this
cabinet. He pushed the eject button,
futilely. Without power the machine would not eject the
tape that it contained. He used the Rugerfour shots
into the heads of the machine.
The brass kicked out on the floor. He picked
them up, pocketed them.
More pacing. Each minute was an agony of waiting.
When the power was restored to the building, he had
expected the alarms to go off in Vargas's office,
and to have to cover Carmellini as he made his exit.
By whatever means necessary, he intended to be the only
man at the main entrance when Carmellini emerged.
Yet if alarms were a normal occurrence, perhaps
violence would not be necessary.
The silenced Ruger rode inside his shirt under his
left armpit. The pistol was an assassin's
weapon, shot a .22 Long Rifle hollow-point
bullet that would do minimal dam-
age unless
fired
into someone's brain at point-blank range. Wounds
in the limbs or body would be painful but not immediately
incapacitating. The Ruger's only virtue was the
silencer that dramatically muffled the report,
reduced it from an ear-splitting crack to a soft,
wet pop that was inaudible beyond a few feet.
He wondered how Carmellini was coming on getting the
safe open. Come
on, Tommy!
Footsteps from within the building.
Here came a flashlight.
"Ah, Colonel, the lieutenant sent me to tell
you that it will not be much longer, that the generator will s.tart
very soon."
"Yes."
"He is having difficulty, the mechanical
condition is not as it should be."
"I understand. I have faith in your lieutenant."
The man went back down the hallway in the
direction from whence he came.
More pacing.
At least three more minutes had passed when the
lieutenant came down the hallway. The occasional
flicker of passing headlights revealed him to be a
large, rotund man.
"I am sorry, Colonel, but we cannot make the
cursed thing run."
"No harm done, if your guards stay alert. And
I can always come back tomorrow for my errand, I
suppose."
"We will stay alert, sir. Our duty is
our trust."
"You and your men have done what you can, have you not?"
"We could awaken Colonel Santana, I
suppose. Perhaps he knows more about the generator than
any of us."
Chance tried to keep his voice under control.
"Colonel Santana is in the building, then?"
"Yes, sir. He came in about an hour ago.
He went to his apartment on the top floor. I
think he was investigating the
incident of the two saboteurs that were killed near a
highvoltage tower south of town."
"A high-voltage tower? That sounds like attempted
sabotage."
"Oh, yes, sir."
"I hadn't heard of that incident."
"Enemies of the regime, sir. Apparently some of
them were successful."
"Santana is the very man I came to seeea"...Chance
declared. "Still, I did not expect to find him
asleep. I suggest you give the generator one last
mighty heroic effort, and if you are unsuccessful,
I shall awaken Colonel Santana."
When the doorknob had turned as far as it would go, the
door to Alejo Vargas's office slowly
opened. Tommy Carmellini was behind the door, still as
a statue hi the park, w
ith a sap in his right hand and the
silenced Ruger in his left.
Now a flashlight beam shot out, swung quickly around
the room, hit the safe and swung away for an
instant, then returned to the door of the safe. The
apparatus Carmellini had attached to the door was quite
plain in the small beam, as was the tangle of wires
that ran to the computer.
Faster than he would have ever believed possible, the
door smashed Tommy Carmellini in the face. The
impact stunned him, threw him backward against the
wall.
The man sprang into the room, swung something that
smacked Carmellini in the skull and made him see
stars.
He was falling, off-balance, the other man coming for him
in a brutal, ferocious way, when he got the
Ruger more or less pointed and began pulling the
trigger as fast as he could. He could barely hear the
pops.
He fell to the floor and his assailant leaped on
him, began smashing him in the face with his fist,
repeatedly.
Swinging his right hand with all his might,
Carmellini hit the other man in the side of the head
with the sap. And again.
The man was slumping, falling to the left.
Carmellini gathered his strength and smashed the man
again, one more time, square in the head.
The man rolled onto the floor, slumped on his
back.
Carmellini sat up, his breath coming
in
ragged gasps. Part of his face was numb, he was
drooling from a mighty punch to the mouth.
He forced himself to his knees. He pocketed the
sap, reached for the flashlight, which was lying on the
floor still lit. He played the light on the face
of his assailant.
San tana.
Oooh, damn!
He checked the pistol. He had fired at least
five shots. A couple of the spent brass were lying
near Santana, who had a bloody place on his
chest, one on his neck. Hit twice, at least.
Maybe one of the little .22 bullets would kill
him.
Maybe not.
Tommy Carmellini found to his
surprise that he didn't care one way or the
other.
He put the pistol back in its holster, wiped
his face with his shirt, and went back to the computer.
The combination was right there on the screen, all three
numbers. The dial wasn't moving.
He tried tiie handle, put some weight on it.
It moved.
The safe was open!
He wiped his face on his sleeve, willed himself
track to his task. First he stowed the computer and
sensors and telescoping rod hi his duffel bag.