He threw it. The mine, tumbling, sailed toward a royal palm tree, where a lone sniper was perched.
It landed, plungers down, in the swaying fronds. The top of the palm jumped apart. Palm fronds, rifle fragments, and assorted human limbs and organs showered down. The stone-gray bole now sported arty red stripes.
"Good thinking," said Remo.
Together, they excavated mines and tossed them at muzzle flashes. Before long, they had decapitated every palm in sight and cleared a lot of brush.
When the firing had stopped completely, they picked their way through the mines. It was easy, this time. The snipers had cleared most of the mines for them.
They found a jeeplike Russian-made Gazik vehicle, keys still in the ignition, and commandeered it. No one stopped them.
"Okay, on to Zapata Swamp," Remo said grimly.
"I am not looking forward to this," Chiun said thinly.
"I know what you mean."
"I have no desire to be the one to slay the illustrious Uncle Sam Beasley."
Remo said nothing, but he was thinking the same thing himself.
And he knew that before the day was done, he might have to kill his childhood hero in the name of his country. The thought made him sick to his stomach.
Chapter 24
The President of Cuba puffed angrily as he stared out his office window. He had to be very angry, to puff in full view of the masses below. For he had sworn to them that he had given up his cherished cigars, as a token of the new Cuban smoking-prevention program he himself had inaugurated amid much fanfare.
He had said it was for the health and well-being of his beloved Cuba. It took him four hours of passionate speechmaking to get his point across, appealing to the people's pride, their patriotism, their concern for their precious Socialist lungs.
In fact, the program was a blind to cover the sad fact that the tobacco crop had failed miserably, leaving only enough for the people to smoke their cigarettes-or Fidel his magnificent cigars.
That had been an easy choice. He would never give up his cigars. He would sooner shave his beloved beard.
An adjutant came in, gasping.
"Another MIG has been shot down!"
"Bah! Send another!"
"But El Lider, we have no more petrol to fuel them!"
El Lider turned angrily, puffing like a steam shovel.
"Then siphon some from my personal helicopter, dolt!"
The man saluted smartly. "At once, El Lider!"
An orderly came in a moment later. Fidel knew it was an orderly, because they were required to call him El Presidente. Each rank of subordinates was restricted in the manner in which they could address him. His women invariably called him El Guapo Grosso.
"El Presidente!" gasped the orderly.
"What is it now?"
"A ship has been sighted bearing toward Havana Harbor."
The Maximum Leader turned from the window curiously. "What ship?"
"An American vessel."
"A warship?"
"No. A cruise ship. It bears the name Beasley Adventure."
"Beasley! El Sam Beasley?"
"Si, El Presidente."
The Maximum Leader of Cuba took his cigar from his bushy mouth and grinned fiercely. "He made mucho gusto cartoons in his day!"
"Si, El Presidente. I personally am a fan of Dingbat Duck."
"Bah! He is nothing beside the pure flame that is Monongahela Mouse. A mouse after my own heart, that one! Now, as for this matter: The stupid capitan must be lost. Capture that ship! We will ransom it."
"Si, El Presidente."
In the filthy waters off Havana Harbor, Cuban gunboats surrounded the Beasley Adventure, like minnows around a basking shark.
The captain of the flotilla lifted a megaphone to his mouth and shouted up.
"Prepare to be boarded, or jou will be blown out of the water!"
It was a colossal bluff. If a firing squad hadn't been the reward for disobedience, he would never have been so audacious as to risk it.
To his surprise, a white-uniformed captain leaned over the rail and shouted down through a megaphone of his own. It was quite powerful. It nearly blasted the Cuban captain's hat off his head with just two words.
"We surrender!"
"Jou will follow us to Habana Harbor!" the captain shouted back.
"Understood!"
And like a tamed and beaten Moby Dick, the leviathan cruise liner Beasley Adventure fell in behind the scooting gunboats.
All along the decks, Cuban naval guns fired into the air in joyous celebration.
The captain shared in none of it. He licked his lips in worriment, as the crumbling gray lines of Morro Castle loomed ahead.
"This is too easy," he muttered.
Chapter 25
The sun was setting in the turquoise expanse of The Bay of Pigs when the first low shapes appeared on the horizon.
First there was but one.
Faustino Barranca, of the Cuban Territorial Troops Militia, saw it through the crimson haze of the setting sun, as if in a dream. He had been grilling alligator meat for his dinner. Since Option Zero, Faustino had personally thinned the alligator population of Zapata Swamp, overlooking the historic Bay of Pigs. It wasn't particularly tasty, but it was better than banana-rat stew.
He had been told of the failed U.S. incursion. All Cuba knew of it. It worried the people greatly, because El Loco Fidel had used it as an excuse to attack Florida. Unsuccessfully, it was true. But the rumors were that he would not give up until he had struck the Colossus of the North a mortal blow.
Everyone knew that the result of this insanity was beyond question: a small crater in Florida-and all of Cuba an inferno.
No one doubted the rationale for this. Socialism was failing. Cuba was crumbling. Castro would fall one day. He was not a man to fall gracefully. Not with his monumental ego.
The Maximum Leader would rather see armageddon, the utter destruction of Cuba, than accept the humiliation of political defeat.
So when the barges began to appear in the dancing red reflections on the Caribbean, Faustino threw sand on his roasting fire to quench it and gathered up his Dragunov sniper's rifle. If these were the Americans, it could only mean that Fidel had succeeded-and Cuba was as good as toast. He wept silently.
The barges grew in number, until they were strung out along the Bay like dark bars of soap.
From low superstructures, dishlike shapes revolved. Their designs were familiar, yet not. As he watched, Faustino came to recognize the odd configuration of three joined discs.
He blinked. "Mongo?"
Then the uniformed figures seated low in their seats stood up in unison. In perfect synchronization, they turned as one.
Rifles snapped to bulky shoulders. It was perfect. Not a man was out of order.
And as if a single button had been pressed, the murderous automatic weapons fire began to rake Zapata Swamp.
Faustino flung himself into the mangroves. He had no choice now but to return fire. He was a sharpshooter. And he was good.
With his eye to the scope, he selected a soldier. The cross hairs lined up with the silhouette of his head, and Faustino squeezed the trigger.
The dark head exploded on its shoulders.
Faustino grinned through his sweat and fear. He had scored a direct hit with his first shot!
Then he laid his eyes against his scope again . . . and saw that the man he had shot, the headless man, was still firing. Firing without a head!
Faustino was so shocked by this sight that, unnerved, he jumped to his feet, the better to see this incredible thing.
A stitchery of bullets violently sewed his tunic to his chest and Faustino Barranca was flung into the mangrove tangle where the alligators would later find in him a tasty snack.
Mouse-eared radar dishes whirling, the amphibious barges came on. Firing relentlessly. Without mercy. Without surcease.
Not even when the rumbling T-64 Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces tank
s came, and began to return the withering fire.
"What manner of soldados are these?!" the tank commander cried. For he saw through his binoculars men without arms, without heads, shattered and broken, yet still firing. Some wildly, others with unerring aim. "They are like machines, not hombres!"
Chapter 26
The Maximum Leader of Cuba was beside himself. The first reports from Zapata Swamp were incredible. A sea armada. Soldiers who continued to fire even as they were being blown to pieces.
He would have ordered the man who brought him the message shot for intoxication on duty, but the only alcohol on the entire island was safely housed in his private wine cellar.
"Our forces are being decimated, El Jefe!" The man was a major, so he was allowed to call him that. "Only your heroic presence will rally them!"
"Good thinking. Order my private helicopter to be readied. The one with the custom bar."
"But El Jefe, there is no petrol! It has been siphoned into a MIG, as per your instructions!"
Maximum Leader glowered. "Then summon the MIG back. We can bomb the nuclear plant later."
"It is too late, El Jefe! The MIG has been destroyed! Shot down!"
"Then we will drive to Zapata Swamp!" he bellowed. "Make it so!" he added, borrowing a line from his favorite American TV show.
"At once, El Jefe!"
Then another flunky came running in, with the news that the Beasley Adventure had been forcibly docked at the rusting oil terminal in the harbor.
"Has it been boarded yet?" he demanded.
"No, El Presidente."
Fidel struck a pose. "Good. Good. For I must be the one to board it personally."
"But El Jefe," the first man asked worriedly, "what of the Zapata incursion?"
"Order all forces mobilized to repel that cowardly assault. Hurl the Yanquis back into the bay. I have more important things to do."
"But ... but-"
"Go, do it!"
To the hovering orderly, he hissed, "Is Mongo on board?"
The orderly shrugged. "I did not see him, El Presidente."
"He will be aboard. For he is ever-present. I look forward to meeting him." The President drew on his campaign cap. "Let us go."
His personal customized Gazik whisked the Maximum Leader of Cuba from the Presidential Palace to the oil terminal. Traffic, normally light in these petroleum-starved times, was extraordinarily heavy. All of it consisted of military vehicles mobilized for the drive to Zapata Swamp. And all flowing in the opposite direction-gut of Havana.
Cuba's leader was oblivious to the massive response to his all-powerful orders. A beaming grin struggled past his dark profusion of beard. He was looking forward to this rendezvous very much.
After all, he was Mongo Mouse's biggest fan.
Chapter 27
Remo Williams had been supplied a detailed map of Cuba by Harold W. Smith. It showed all highways, significant roads and military installations, and mileage distance between. A big red circle indicated Guantanamo Naval Air Base and another highlighted Zapata Swamp, with a fat red line connecting the two.
Smith, after he had drawn the red parts, had pronounced the map foolproof.
Unfortunately, he had overlooked the fact that the map was a product of the nation's brief flirtation with the metric system. Mileage was given in kilometers.
"We're lost," grumbled Remo, who didn't know a kilometer from a kiloton. It was a balmy night in Cuba. The royal palms swayed in the breeze, like hula dancers with shaggy heads, as he tried to read the tiny mileage numbers by moonlight.
"How can we be lost?" Chiun said plaintively. "You have the Emperor's personal map."
"It's in kilometers. I only know miles."
"I have told you that you should be acquainted with all tongues," Chiun sniffed.
"Give me a break! The kilometer isn't a verb. It's a unit of measure. A stupid, useless unit of measure. I figure we've come thirty miles. What I want to know is, how many kilometers is that?" He looked toward a nearby city. "If that's Sancti Spiritus, we should take the left-hand road. But I don't see any signs saying it is."
"Even if you did," Chiun sniffed, "it would not help you, who cannot read elementary Spanish."
"I can read signs," Remo said defensively.
"If that is so, why can you not read a simple plan, on which circles and lines have been drawn for you in crayon? A child could follow that map."
Remo got the Gazik in gear, saying, "It's not crayon. It's Magic Marker."
Chiun sniffed. "An American crayon. There is no difference."
They received a lot of attention as they barreled along. Natives of amazingly varied skin colors waved to them as they passed.
It was crazy, but Remo took a chance and stopped.
"Sancti Spiritus?" he asked a roly-poly woman who looked amazingly like Aunt Jemima, pointing to the left-hand road. She was carrying her wet wash bundled on her head.
"Si, si, " she said pleasantly.
Remo threw her a gracias and took the left fork with confidence.
"The natives are unaccountably friendly," Chiun remarked.
"Or dumb as posts," Remo muttered. "We could be Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell, for all they know."
Behind them they heard a low roar, growing louder as it came closer. They looked back and saw a mechanized column approaching at a high rate of speed.
"Uh-oh," said Remo, pulling over to the side of the road. They got their vehicle into some brush and waited for the convoy to pass.
It was big. And long-consisting of T-64 tanks, BMP armored vehicles, and lurching Gaziks like their own. There was also a flock of military bicycles.
"They appear to be in a hurry," said Chiun, peering through rank foliage.
"I wonder," Remo muttered. "Could they be going where we're going?"
"If that is so, the attack has begun."
Remo got the stubborn engine going. "Let's follow them."
They shot out of the brush and fell in behind the column. Fortunately the roads were of hard-packed dirt, and the long tunnel of dust the convoy was generating was more than enough to conceal them.
At a major fork in the road the convoy encountered another and, after some argument over who would get to lead the march, formed one long olive-green line. A few miles along, the long convoy absorbed another.
Overhead, a lone observation helicopter sputtered along, heading north. It seemed to be running on empty.
"We may be too late," Remo said darkly.
By the time the swamp-stink had begun to tickle their sensitive noses, they could hear the sound of automatic weapons fire, punctuated by the relentless boom-boom-boom of artillery pieces and 125-mm tank cannon.
"We're too late!" Remo snapped. He was standing up in his seat, trying to make out the scene through the haze of gunsmoke and roiling oil smoke.
"What do you see?" asked Chiun, straining unsuccessfully on tippytoe.
"I see barges out in the water. They're taking a pounding."
"Is this good or is this bad?" Chiun wanted to know.
Remo had to think about that a minute.
"It's good for our mission, I think," he said slowly. "But it's bad for Cuba."
"Is it good for the bearded tyrant, the preempter of beauty and joy?" asked Chiun. Remo's brow puckered. "Yeah. Dammit, it is."
Chiun's face darkened. "There is no justice."
"Let's see if we can't scare up our own," Remo said, dropping into the seat and sending the Gazik bumping and jouncing along the rough terrain.
As they drove, their tires popped the swarms of fleeing red crabs, with a sound like a symphony of flat tires.
When they had reached the edge of a vast swamp, they jumped out and climbed a hillock.
They had a panoramic view of the Bay of Pigs. The barges were as thick as ice cakes in an Arctic sea. As they watched, men in old-fashioned pirate costumes shouted in Spanish and swept the defenders strung along the swamp with concentrated fire. Remo recognized a few choice curses
.
A number of barges had run aground and been blown up in the mangrove tangle. They were littered with heads and limbs and other body parts. There was no visible blood on the wrecked amphibious barges.
But they did notice the radar dishes shaped like Mongo Mouse heads.
"Why do they need radar?" Remo wondered.
"Because they are blind," said Chiun.
Remo looked down at the Master of Sinanju blankly. "Try me again, Little Father?"
Chiun beckoned for Remo to follow. Remo complied.
They came down the hillock, as the bullets and shells whistled all around them. They slipped down to the moonlit water and waded through the mangroves, which resembled multi-legged trees attempting to rise up out of the water.
They worked their way to one of the half-sunken barges.
"Behold!" cried Chiun, dragging a corsair off the rail where he had been slumped. His body ended at the waist, tapering into a male electronic connection the size of a fireplug.
Remo grunted. "Hey, this guy's animatronic!"
"All are," said Chiun. "This is why they need mouse heads to tell them where to point their boomsticks. "
Remo looked out across the darkling Bay of Pigs. The pirates in the barges, some standing, some sitting, were firing in precise controlled bursts, stopping to reload with the same jerky economy of motion as a factory robot designed to fill empty cans with sliced peaches.
"I don't see any live guys," Remo said.
"There are none," Chiun said.
As they watched, a barge passed more or less unscathed through the murderous fire and coasted toward them. They slipped down until the rank water lapped at their lower eyelashes.
The barge nudged a mangrove clump, splintering it. The pirates, seated, continued to fire mechanically, while the mouse-head radar-with one ear blown off-continued its back-and-forth rotation.
"They're not getting out," Remo whispered, lifting his mouth free of the water to speak. He was not fired on.
"They are not created to perform that task," Chiun agreed. "For they have no legs."
"So what's the point? They can't take the beach-I mean, swamp. And the first rule of invasion is: grab a piece of land and hold it."
Chiun frowned.
"This is not the invasion," he said.
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