The Hamlet Warning

by Leonard Sanders

  Loomis tossed him a roll of heavy nylon-threaded Scotch tape. “Lash them all up except the Professor,” he said. “The Professor goes with us.”

  “You’re insane!” the Professor said. “There are hundreds of rebels, anywhere you turn.”

  “And all asleep,” Loomis said. “You four, turn around and put your hands behind your backs.”

  Johnson picked up his Heckler and paused, listening. Then Loomis heard it, too.

  Footsteps were approaching from somewhere deep within the church. Normally, a barrier of metal rods separated the church proper from the tourist area around Columbus’s tomb. But the rebels had removed several of the rods, providing direct access to the church.

  Loomis knelt and turned down the nearest Coleman. Johnson backed into the darkness of the church. Loomis walked quietly to a corner, under the huge frescoes beside the shrine. He was still hoping the newcomers would walk into the light unaware, that they could avoid shooting, but the Professor saw his chance.

  “Trap!” he yelled. “Go back! Get help!”

  Johnson’s Heckler opened up on full automatic inside the sanctuary. The noise was unbelievable. The five captives bolted for the door. Loomis cut four down, but he allowed the Professor to run, certain he could stop him. The Professor was at the door, in full stride, when Loomis caught him behind the ear with the butt of his weapon. The Professor fell sprawling and lay still.

  Again all was quiet in the church.

  “I could use some light over here,” Johnson said. “You all right?”

  “I’m O.K. It’s these other fellows I’m worried about. I think they’re all down for the count, but I’m not sure. Be careful.”

  Holding a lantern well out to one side, Loomis checked the damage. Johnson had killed four rebel officers and critically wounded two. Blood, brains, and chipped masonry covered the floor.

  “I sure hope nobody hit poor ol’ Columbus,” Johnson said.

  Loomis hurried back to the Professor. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “If we have to, we’ll carry the son of a bitch.”

  The Professor was dazed but able to stand on his feet. Loomis found his glasses and handed them to him. A thin trickle of blood ran from his ear into his beard.

  “How much time do we have before the whole rebel army comes swarming over here?” Johnson asked.

  “About two minutes. You have anything you want to do?”

  “Not especially.”

  “There’s a cannonball from Sir Francis Drake’s flagship buried up there somewhere in the roof. It’s something every tourist ought to see. If you want to run up and take a look, I’ll see if I can’t hold off the rebel army for a while.”

  “I’ll pass. If you’ve seen one cannonball, you’ve seen them all.”

  Johnson hurriedly extinguished all the lights. Loomis led the Professor and Johnson out into the night.

  “How far do we have to go?” Johnson asked.

  “Eleven or twelve blocks,” Loomis said. “We’ll try to come out somewhere around the Gate of La Misericordia. People in that direction will think the shooting was down by the river.”

  Keeping to the shadows, they made four blocks without incident.

  They were nearing the intersection of Calle 19 de Marzo and Calle Padre Bellini when a burst of bullets passed within a yard of them and slammed into a wall, showering them with concrete chips and plaster. Loomis ducked to the pavement, pushing the Professor full-length. Johnson sprawled beside them.

  “Alto!” a sentry yelled from the opposite side of the intersection.

  “That guy has got it ass backward,” Johnson said. “Isn’t he supposed to challenge first, then shoot?”

  Johnson worked his Heckler into position. Loomis could see more rebels in the doorways beyond the sentry. He didn’t want a firefight. He put a hand on Johnson’s arm. “Hold it,” he said.

  “Well, it pisses me off,” Johnson fumed. “Nobody does his job right anymore.”

  Loomis pulled his Colt .357 magnum and put the barrel against the Professor’s temple. He cocked the hammer. “Professor, your life depends on how well you carry this off,” he said. “Send those soldiers south, down toward the ocean.”

  The Professor nodded, swallowed carefully, and called out a stream of obscenities that immobilized the sentry.

  Never letting up on the tongue-lashing, he rose and stepped into the moonlit intersection. He rattled out orders, dividing the men into patrols to scour the ocean front for government troops he said had penetrated rebel lines.

  “Hang onto that fellow and you might win this war,” Johnson said.

  Loomis waited until the soldiers left, then led the Professor and Johnson on west. Near the Old City gate they found barricades manned by government troops. Loomis called for them to hold their fire.

  Prodding the Professor, they crossed the street under government guns. Loomis identified himself to a captain and borrowed a jeep.

  *

  Loomis held his temper until they reached the Jaragua. He took the Professor straight to Johnson’s room, pushed him into a chair, and let his anger flow.

  “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said. “I know you put out the contract on me tonight. I’d just as soon blow your head off as look at you.”

  The Professor licked his lips, stared at Loomis through his thick glasses, and said nothing.

  “There’s only one reason you’re still alive,” Loomis told him. “You may be worth more to me alive than dead. I need to talk to Ramón. You know how to reach him.” Loomis picked up the phone and tossed it into the Professor’s lap. “Call him,” he said.

  The Professor slowly shook his head. “I don’t know where he is,” he said. “Ramón moves constantly …”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” Loomis warned. “Don’t take me for an idiot. You’re Ramón’s top man in the capital. You’re bound to know how to track him down if you want to. And you damned sure better want to. I have a proposition for him. You might find it interesting. He has a hostage — the girl, María Elena de la Torre. I’ll swap you for her. Fair trade.”

  The Professor looked at the phone but made no move. “I can give you Ramón’s answer now,” he said. “He will not trade. I’m not that important to the movement. The girl has considerable propaganda value …”

  “There are other things that won’t wait,” Loomis said. “The war has to be halted. It’s a matter of life or death to the entire city of Santo Domingo. If the war isn’t stopped, there’s a good chance neither you nor Ramón will be alive this time tomorrow night.”

  The Professor looked up. “The girl has told a crazy story,” he said. “Ramón doesn’t believe her.”

  “Maybe he’ll believe me,” Loomis said. “I can give him names, places, dates.”

  “Then there is a nuclear bomb in Santo Domingo?”

  “You better believe it.”

  “Who is behind it?”

  “If we knew that, we might be halfway to finding it. All we know for certain is that it’s international. Men have died in Europe, maybe elsewhere, to put it here. This man is from the CIA. He’ll confirm what I say.” The Professor frowned at the phone for a full minute. Johnson tossed him a towel to wipe his ear and beard. He then lifted the receiver and dialed so rapidly Loomis couldn’t ascertain the number. But he knew the clicks could be determined on the monitoring tape, if need be.

  The Professor asked to speak to Ramón. An underling apparently gave him some difficulty, but within two minutes he had Ramón on the line.

  “The norteamericano, Loomis, wishes to speak with you,” the Professor said. “I don’t know what he is going to say, but don’t let my safety be a consideration in your decision. The movement is too important. And I think you should be aware that this conversation is probably being recorded and your location traced. Have care. I wouldn’t put you in this potential danger, except that Loomis has partially convinced me that the girl is telling the truth.”

  He handed the receiver to Loomi
s.

  Ramón’s voice was cool, distant. “Loomis, I’m trying to decide whether you are incredibly good, fantastically lucky, or just plain stupid. Which is it?”

  “You tell me,” Loomis said.

  “If it’s any satisfaction to you, eight of my best staff officers are dead. But I think it’s going to work against you. My men are terribly angry.”

  “I got what I went after,” Loomis said. “He’s right here. You can have him back. All I want is the girl in exchange.”

  The line was silent for a moment. “I’m reluctant to let her go, Loomis. Aside from the publicity value, she has a lively, entertaining imagination.”

  “Her story isn’t original. I first heard it from the CIA.”

  “And you believe them?”

  “I believe the story. You better believe it, too. I can’t do my job, track down that bomb, with your fucking war going on. Let’s call a cease-fire long enough to find it. Then you people can fight for the next thirty years, for all I care.”

  Ramón snorted into the phone. “I’ve spent two years building this revolution. I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets by telling you that the next twenty-four hours, maybe the next twelve hours, will be decisive. My men are ready, psychologically. If I hesitate now, I’ll never get back to this point. How do I know this isn’t a clever ruse to stall my whole revolution right at this critical time?”

  “You don’t,” Loomis said.

  “I’m supposed to trust you?”

  “Trust your instincts. You’re bound to know that something unusual has been going on. Surely you’ve had reports.”

  “All of your unusual activities could have been staged for my benefit.”

  Loomis sighed. “Ramón, I’m tired. I’ve had a rough night. I’m going to tell you once more, and if you don’t believe me, you can go fuck yourself. A good portion of Santo Domingo will be vaporized at one o’clock this afternoon. I don’t know what part. The bomb may be on your side of the lines, it may be over here. We need a house-to-house search to find it. There’s no way to do that with a war going on. And you’re the only man who can call a cease-fire.”

  Loomis listened to the faint hum of the open line while Ramón wrestled with his decision.

  “I’ll return the girl,” Ramón said. “In exchange for the Professor, of course. He’s much too modest. I do need him.”

  “And the cease-fire?”

  “That will depend on you and on El Jefe. The girl will bring you a proposal. I’m not inflexible.”

  “A proposal for a cease-fire?”

  “Perhaps. A compromise. It’s rather complicated. I would prefer to allow María Elena to describe it. Actually, she first suggested the plan. We have been negotiating for two days.”

  “Where will we make the exchange? And when?”

  “How about an hour from now at the northeast corner of Parque Independencia? You can bring the Professor out from your barricades there. María Elena will be escorted from our lines. The exchange can be made in the middle of the street, under both rebel and government guns.”

  “All right,” Loomis said. “An hour from now.”

  *

  The exchange was made without incident. Loomis walked Professor Salamanca out from behind the barricades toward the center of the street, well lit by battery lanterns. A uniformed rebel captain brought María Elena out. Her hair was disheveled, and Loomis could see lines of fatigue under her eyes. She seemed completely dazed and exhausted. He put an arm around her and walked her to El Jefe’s Cadillac. She clung to him desperately but didn’t talk until they were in the car, driving the few short blocks to the palacio. He felt a shudder pass through her body. “Being away from you was the worst part, Loomis,” she whispered. “Hold me. Please hold me.”

  In the palacio driveway, she regained her composure. “Ramón has agreed to a coalition government,” she said. “But on these terms: he will accept my father as President, with the provision that he be named First Secretary. He will accept the government generals in the coalition, provided they are matched in number and position by his own generals.”

  “And El Jefe?”

  “He must leave the country before there can be a cease-fire.”

  “Then that’s no compromise,” Loomis said. “El Jefe might step down, accept some honorary title for the good of the country. But Ramón is asking too much.”

  “That’s what I told him,” María Elena said. “We argued for two days.”

  “And he still doesn’t believe the bomb exists?”

  “He’s not thoroughly convinced. But he is concerned. You see, he’s hedging his bets. He thinks that if the atomic bomb exists, El Jefe will resign. If the story isn’t true, then he has lost nothing in making the offer.”

  Loomis was impressed with Ramón’s shrewdness. But when the proposal was explained to El Jefe, the old revolutionary didn’t see the maneuver in that light. He believed that Ramón had heard rumors of the United States Navy force leaving Guantánamo Bay and assumed that Ramón hoped to effect a partial victory before the landing of U.S. Marines.

  Despite María Elena’s exhaustion, El Jefe led her repeatedly through her arguments with Ramón, hunting some clue to Ramón’s thought processes. Loomis put a stop to the interrogation by summoning the palacio physician, who declared María Elena near collapse. He gave her a sedative and ordered her to bed. “Come to me when you can,” she whispered to Loomis. “I need you.”

  El Jefe and Loomis went to work planning the defense of the palacio. El Jefe vetoed Loomis’s plan for a tank assault downriver to sever rebel lines of supply. The tanks would be needed to support a final line of defense, he insisted.

  Ramón’s proposal plagued El Jefe.

  “He must know something we don’t,” El Jefe reasoned. “What does your CIA friend say about the possibility of intervention?”

  “He doesn’t know, of course. But he’s doubtful.”

  El Jefe frowned, thinking. “Ramón must have good information that the U.S. Marines are en route here. The United States must be seriously considering intervention. They know Ramón is a leftist. Perhaps they don’t want another Cuba. What do you think?”

  “I’m more concerned over the bomb, at the moment,” Loomis said. “I think we should give it precedence.” He checked the time. Two minutes after 2:00 A.M. Less than eleven hours remained. “But even if the Marines landed at sunup, they probably couldn’t secure the downtown section by one o’clock. I think our only hope of finding that bomb is to accept Ramón’s offer.”

  “I’ll see him in hell first,” El Jefe said.

  “That may be sooner than we think,” Loomis said.

  El Jefe looked up, surprised by the impertinence. But his mind seemed to be occupied with another thought.

  “We must make the effort,” he said.

  He picked up a telephone and summoned an aide.

  “I am making a formal request for U.S. intervention,” he said.

  Chapter 26

  Minus 09:15 Hours

  Even in the dead waste of the night, the White House press corps was not without resources. Within minutes of the first arrivals at the White House, most of the veteran reporters were alerted to the unusual gathering of national leaders. By the time the reporters themselves arrived in the predawn darkness, enough of a roster had been assembled to ascertain that the National Security Council was meeting in emergency session.

  Speculation ranged widely among the press. Those with early deadlines fished desperately for solid information. The wire services sent queries to correspondents throughout the world, seeking clues.

  Rumors of a new crisis in the Middle East persisted. Reports confirmed that most of the Sixth Fleet was at sea in the Mediterranean, which could mean anything. But the tell-tale activities of auxiliary ships — oilers, tenders, and such — seemed routine. Longtime observers in that part of the world discounted any extraordinary developments.

  A few believed a new crisis had surfaced in the Far Ea
st. But again, no movements of the Seventh Fleet in Pacific waters or of the Strategic Air Command offered confirmation. Key Military Air Transport commands across the continental United States provided no clues.

  Inevitably, speculation returned to the situation in the Dominican Republic. Correspondents on the scene from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune reported a rapid deterioration of the government forces in Santo Domingo. Yet no one seriously believed that the Administration might be considering intervention. El Jefe certainly was not a favorite of the State Department; he had blocked too many United States programs and had spoken out too often on United States interference in Dominican affairs. The Latin America experts among the press corps said intervention was inconceivable. They pointed out that Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 occupation was now universally deplored by political authorities and historians.

  A few persisted in believing that the Dominican Republic was involved. Reporters with high sources in the Navy Department learned that the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Ranger, along with escort destroyers, had left Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on such short notice that liberty parties flown to Kingston and San Juan were left ashore. These sources admitted that marines from Little Creek, Parris Island, and the barracks at Guantánamo had been rushed aboard to augment fleet marines.

  By 5:00 A.M., the speculation stories had jelled into a consistent summation: something extraordinary was afoot at the White House, leading the President to call the National Security Council into emergency session in the middle of the night. All evidence pointed to some action by the United States in regard to the deteriorating situation in the Dominican Republic.

  This was the gist of stories prepared by television networks and the wire services to lead the morning news budget.

  *

  Inside the White House, in the Situation Room near the National Security Adviser’s basement office, the President after a full night of work sat quietly smoking a cigar and sipping his bedtime brandy, listening to the stormy debate raging around him.