“Got the order through, sir. The missile is armed, and the door is being bolted. Within three minutes, as soon as the technician takes cover, we can be ready to—”
“Fidel!” Che screamed. “Listen! Listen!”
Castro dropped his microphone and leaned over to the radio.
The Miami announcer: “It looks as if somebody shot at the President. The presidential motorcade is speeding away—to a hospital. Come in, Ollie. Ollie, do you hear me, this is Steve in Miami. I can’t make you out. What did you say? Is there any further news on the shot at the President?”
Che hissed at Dorticós: “Try Dallas on the other radio.” Dorticós bent over the second set and brought in the first station to which they had listened most of the morning. A voice came in clearly.
“—hospital. Parkland Memorial Hospital, apparently, is the closest to the scene. The presidential car should arrive there within a minute or two. One bystander, just a few feet from where the bullet was fired, said to a local broadcaster that he was certain the President had been hit—”
“Give me Kirov back,” Castro bellowed out to the radio operator.
In the bus, at 1340, Jesús Ferrer heard the radio bulletin. “A shot—several shots—have been fired at the President! Repeat, a shot has been fired at President Kennedy. The presidential car is speeding forward, with motorcycles in the lead. Stand by! Stand by! Shots have been fired at the President.” Jesús Ferrer waited tensely to hear whether the shot was fatal. His men were ready, and Ferrer’s eyes were on the missile. There was suddenly the awful question on which he hadn’t dwelt. The missile was scheduled to go up no matter what. Go up armed if Kennedy was—was what? Unhurt? Merely wounded? If dead, the missile would be harmless: but how would Castro know? Might Kennedy linger in the hospital? An hour? A week? A month? Meanwhile, what? Jesús Ferrer had no appetite to be killed needlessly. But it would take his bus, charging through the guardpost, a full minute to reach the missile; from fire to take off would require only twenty to thirty seconds. There would be no banging into it if the launch had begun: the bus would not be able to come close to the fiery galaxy. Was he obliged to take no chances, to charge ahead? The radio: “There are only glum faces around Parkland Memorial Hospital, ladies and gentlemen. But no official word. The President is in the operating room—”
From the third seat of the bus, Pano’s voice was heard. “Open the door! Open the door! It is Oakes! Joe! Open it, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Mico opened the bus door and Blackford climbed up. He had been running. He looked Jesús in the face.
“Quick. Brief me.”
“They shot him. We do not know whether he is dead.”
Blackford paused. “I say we take out the missile. Can’t risk it going off.”
“It will not go off—if Kennedy is—if he is—”
“Dead?” Blackford almost shouted. He began to move toward the driver’s seat. Jesús Ferrer flashed an order. “Agárrale.” Two of Ferrer’s men rose from the front seat. The first blocked the aisle, his right hand circling one of the bus’s aluminum bars, his left another. The second man crouched down in the aisle and leveled his machine gun at Blackford’s groin. Ferrer hissed out in English, “Wait, Blackforrd. Wait, wait one moment. Be calm.”
But then they heard the roar from the missile. It was too late.
The silent white soapsuds at the missile’s base began to accumulate, lazily at first, then, gradually, in torrents; then came the noise that shook the membranes of the inner ear even a hundred yards away, within the safety of the cave, so that when Pushkin brought out his pistol and fired three times at Kirov no one could distinguish the pistol sounds from the great, comprehensive roar, except Leandro at his side. But the Soviet guard opposite saw the action: he saw a man dressed as a Soviet sergeant lift a pistol and aim it at whoever it was, outside the guard’s view, at the command-post level of the cave. The guard swiftly raised his rifle and fired at Pushkin, dropping him to the ground with a bullet that only narrowly missed Leandro before reaching the cave’s stony wall opposite. Leandro rushed past the body of Kirov to the radio console. He fired his pistol into the head of the technician, swung around, and slammed his wrist triumphantly over the DESTRUCT switch. A fusillade from Soviet guards, opposite, brought Leandro down. He hit the ground as three miles up on its trajectory, Petrouchka exploded in midair.
At that moment, six Cuban Special Service guards—the elite guard deployed for this special mission—opened machine-gun fire on the Soviet personnel, a thousand rounds fired at six Soviet technicians and two dozen Soviet guards.
In the bus, Jesús Ferrer and Blackford were paralyzed by the deafening sound of the missile launch. Blackford stared as it rose into the sky, and, in a few seconds, shattered into fragments, falling in pieces into the ocean.
Castro had acted precipitately? He smiled as he puffed on his cigar and leaned back in his chair. “Fidel knows best,” he teased.
But—they were not sure about him—he had fired the missile only a minute or two after news of the shooting. How could he know it was fatal? Maybe it was just a head wound?
The cars had arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital and it was plain from the tone of voice of the announcer what to expect. At exactly 1400 it was confirmed.
John F. Kennedy was dead.
“You see?” Castro beamed. “You just need to trust me. Eh, Che?
“Osvaldo?
“Ramiro?
“Raúl?
“Let us have a little lunch.”
EPILOGUE
They had had to wait until nearly midnight because the contact was scheduled for 0025, and it was a half hour’s walk to the beach, Miguel and Mico serving as guides, Blackford and Pano following behind. Jesús Ferrer had left them just after the sun had set.
It had been very strange. The name of the victim had not once been mentioned, not by Ferrer, nor by any of his men, nor by Nena who came by. They had reached the little farmhouse separately, arriving in three different conveyances. Pano, all but threatening force, persuaded Blackford to abandon his motorbike—Mico mounted it—and ride in the automobile with him, leaving the second car to Ferrer and his three companions. When they arrived, Blackford went into his bedroom and quietly closed the door. At about six, Pano knocked. When told to come in he opened it. Blackford was sitting on the bed, still in his campesino clothes. Pano asked if he might bring him something to eat or drink, Blackford thanked him and said no. An hour later, Pano knocked again and said that Jesús Ferrer was about to leave, and would like to say goodbye. Of course, Blackford said, remaining seated on the bed. Pano looked at him inquisitively, and then retreated, and brought Ferrer into the little bedroom with the little cot and the crucifix directly above the slightly stooped head of Blackford.
He moved to be on his feet, but Jesús Ferrer put his hands on Blackford’s shoulders. “Siéntate, compañero.” Sit down, my friend. “I am only here to say goodbye, though I suppose farewell is the word even Oxford would have authorized on this occasion. I wish to say only this, that although some people forget their debts, some do not, and I am that, perhaps not more than that, one who does not forget, and will not forget, you, and what you have attempted to do.”
Blackford looked up and began to speak, but Jesús saw that he was having difficulty, so he placed his hands once again on Blackford’s shoulders and whispered the words, “Farewell. Vaya con Dios.”
Soon after they set out—stealthily, through the thin little swampy forest between the farmhouse and the beach—Pano became aware that Blackford was walking somnambulistically. At one point where Mico, ahead of him, turned obliquely left, Blackford kept walking forward. Pano had needed to quicken his pace, seize Blackford, a hand on each arm, and gently redirect him to the left, following the trail of their guides. It was so when, reaching the cache behind the beach where the swimsuits had been hidden. Blackford dutifully put his on, including the face mask. Pano whispered, removing Blackford’s mask, that it was not necessary to don it until the
boat appeared.
It did so at exactly the contracted time, and the exchange of light signals was done. Pano said goodbye to Miguel and Mico, and Blackford said goodbye, and he noticed, vaguely, that they did not look him in the face.
They swam out to the same Elco that had brought them there on Wednesday night. The same two Cuban pilots helped them into the boat, and soon the captain turned on the power and, at moderate speed, moved toward the twelve-mile frontier.
Blackford, lying on the spartan settee, was jolted by the sudden revving of the boat to its furious sixty-knot speed after it had reached open water, the freedom of the seas.
There was no moon, but stars, especially congested, Blackford thought—crowding, perhaps, to ogle the events below—and there was a chill in the air. Blackford wondered if there was a chill in the air in Dallas. He wondered, too, what was the temperature in whatever room Fidel Castro was occupying. For almost eleven hours he had fought the compulsion to visualize the scene but now he couldn’t any longer, so he let it happen. The cavalcade of stars. The crowds and the cheering. The photographers and the press. And then—the shot. He closed his eyes.
He had to face the question. Not the question, Could he, Blackford, have prevented it?
He had answered that question to his satisfaction. Yes, he could have prevented death from that bullet; no, not from another cause.
The question that tormented him now was whether he had been, somehow, responsible … in some way, indeed, an agent of—that bullet?
Operation Mongoose.
Mongoose, R.I.P. The operation as dead now as its godfather. Blackford closed his eyes, and his mind flowed from scene to scene. The victim on the day of his inauguration. The victim on the day he sat in the Lincoln Bedroom—quietly, oh so smoothly, quieting his brother.
He saw Consuelo, suddenly dropping below the husky outdoor picnic table at Tres Marías. He had to sit up. He leaned over the side of the speeding boat, and was sick.
Pano sat down on the chair, opposite the settee and, intending relief, said, “In a few minutes we will be there. I will spend the night in your apartment.”
Blackford nodded, unsmiling. He was very pale, and Pano insisted that he put on a heavy-weather sweater. Blackford did so.
Fifteen minutes later the boat eased into the slumbering little harbor at Marathon and tied up at its slip. Pano turned his flashlight onto the settee and whispered, “We are ready, Blackforrd.”
There was no reply.
He shone the light on Blackford’s face, and quickly snapped it shut.
He climbed up to the cockpit.
“Está durmiendo, nuestro compañero. Déjelo tranquilo.” Yes, their companion was sleeping, and yes, they would let him rest quietly.
BOOKNOTES
This is a work of fiction.
The most conspicuous historical characters are, obviously, characters in history, and some of the episodes are drawn from official and nonofficial, but creditable, sources.
—Operation Mongoose was the name given by the CIA to the attempt to assassinate Castro, from 1961 to 1962, and to related questions. Previous and subsequent attempts on Castro went under different names (Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities [hereafter cited as Church Committee], Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 94th Congress, 1st Session, 1975, p. 139; Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA, Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, p. 129; John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA, Simon & Schuster, 1986, p. 383; Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1986, p. 573).
—The attempt to assassinate Castro via a wet suit, to be given to Fidel Castro by James Donovan (without his knowledge), was made. Donovan’s gift to Castro of a different wet suit is factual (Church Committee, op. cit., pp. 85–86; Powers, op. cit., p. 150; Ranelagh, op. cit., pp. 388–89).
—Allegations to the effect that the Soviet Union had left in hiding in Cuba one or more nuclear missiles were made by Cuban refugee sources and later by Senator Kenneth Keating (January 31, 1963). These charges were denied by Robert McNamara and John McCone on February 6, 1963 (Facts on File Yearbook, 1963, pp. 50–51).
—The attempt to poison Castro by poisoned pills through his mistress is factual (e.g., Paul Meskil, “CIA Sent Bedmate to Kill Castro,” New York Daily News, June 13, 1976).
—The assassination of Blanco Rico by Rolando Cubela in 1956 is factual (George Crile III, “The Riddle of AM LASH,” Washington Post, May 2, 1976; Powers, op. cit., p. 151; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times, Ballantine Books, 1979, p. 589; Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971, pp. 889–90).
—The attempt to expedite the assassination of Castro by providing Rolando Cubela with an appropriate sniper’s rifle is factual (Church Committee, op. cit., p. 89).
—The statement by Castro threatening retaliation against political assassination is factual (Crile, op. cit., “The Riddle of AM LASH”).
—The sponsorship of Operation Mongoose by President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy is asserted by Thomas Powers (op. cit., p. 155) and John Ranelagh (op. cit., p. 38).
—Although any direct knowledge of the plan to assassinate Castro was denied by CIA Director (1961–65) John McCone (Church Committee, op. cit., p. 99; Powers, op. cit., p. 149; Ranelagh, op. cit., pp. 387–88), it is widely questioned that he was in fact ignorant of the operation (e.g., Powers, op. cit., p. 150). It is not disputed that Operation Mongoose and its successors were administered by a division of the CIA.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to record my gratitude to the legion of friends who helped me with this novel—
Tony Savage typed the drafts with derring-do, using WordStar, Smartkey, and Savage-All. I yield to him the speed record, though with my Kaypro 386 plus all Tony’s above, plus Path-Minder, plus DesqView, plus SideKick, plus Daniel Shurman of Humanware to make sense of it all, I am, well, something of a dreadnought on a word processor.
Dorothy McCartney was principally in charge of the research, and will soon be offering classes in Cuban history.
Professor Perla Rozencvaig was good enough to supply me with details of Havana, 1963, which I found invaluable.
The manuscript was read by my wife Pat, my sister Priscilla, my brother Reid, my son Christopher, my friends Charles Wallen, Jr., Professor Thomas Wendel, and Sophie Wilkins—to all of them, my thanks.
Frances Bronson, as ever, provided the editorial coordination; invaluable, cheerful, indispensable.
Mrs. Chaucy Bennetts, the copy editor, caught one thousand and one solecisms.
Joseph Isola (he reminds me) has now proofread twenty-two of my books, since that fateful day in the sixties when, after spotting errors in my most recent book, he carelessly volunteered to help me with future books.
Alfred Aya, Jr.—as always—was my technical adviser; ever resourceful, ingenious, knowledgeable, and demanding. If there is a filament out of place in the missile scenes, it is not the fault of Mr. Aya.
Above all, I am indebted to Samuel S. Vaughan of Random House. This is the twelfth manuscript he has edited, and no one could have taken greater pains nor exercised better judgment than he in his recommendations. I am proud of our professional (and personal) association, and take pleasure in dedicating this novel to him.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1987 by William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Mongoose, R.I.P. Page 33