"Heard what?"
"You know…about it. They say tomorrow."
"Tomorrow. I heard this afternoon late, if not early in the evening."
"Possibly such things cannot be planned with precision."
"I wouldn't know anything about that. But if it doesn't happen today, then the rumors, you know, about the speaker tonight, they will be ridiculous, no?"
"I suppose. I just heard that fellow talks but does nothing."
"But if he is involved, then maybe it has moved beyond nothing."
"He is a good speaker."
"His radio speech when Chiba died"- Castro!―"it was good, but nothing ever came of it. Possibly this time it will be different."
But Speshnev was already gone.
Where was the young bastard? Of course, not in any of his usual haunts. He wasn't in the park of San Francisco, where the chess players gathered, indulging in his pastime. He wasn't in any of the coffeehouses around the hill that was crowned by the university, or on its glorious splurge of steps, or among the yakkers in the law school cafeteria. He wasn't anywhere except…it was hard to believe, hard to understand, but could he actually be… working?
So Speshnev rose in the rotten old apartment building, entering through a dark corridor, wending up a dark stairway, following his way around the balcony engulfing the narrow courtyard, reading the numbers on the battered pastel doors, until at last he came to his destination.
He knocked.
After a time, there came rustling noises, the sounds of a baby stirring, and finally, the door cracked but a bit. An exceptionally pretty face glared at him suspiciously. What a beautiful young girl!
"Ah, is he here?"
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"A friend. He knows me. We talk in the park."
"He is writing his speech."
"For tomorrow?"
"For tonight, he says. Can you come back?"
"It's important that I see him."
"And why?"
"Young lady-Maria, isn't that it?"
"Mirta. But how could you know? He never takes me anywhere."
"He talks of you often."
"Ha! He never talks of me. I do not exist for him, except when he is in a certain mood. He―"
Before she sailed off on the seas of inconsolable bitterness, Speshnev reseized the momentum.
"Mirta, you do not want policemen visiting, do you? That would be even worse. Arrests, beatings, the scandal. Think of the parents, the family honor. Therefore it is important that I see him."
Mirta continued to eye him.
"Where are you from? You speak like a Spaniard."
"I am of Spanish experience, yes, extensive. That is where I learned the language. I am not one of these excitable Cubans."
"All right. But if he yells at me, I'll be so mad."
"He will kiss you."
"That I doubt."
He walked through the apartment, not that it was far to go, and heard the baby stirring restively, saw the fight between the woman's tidiness and the man's contempt for tidiness-that is, books in piles and gewgaws in rows, in continual battle.
He arrived at a back bedroom where, in his flaccid, shirtless condition, his eyes shielded by thick glasses, Castro scribbled away furiously by the bald light of a lamp whose shade was somewhere else.
He looked up, saw Speshnev, and did not pause even a second to remark on the incongruity of that man's presence in his home, a phenomenon which had not occurred before and was not remotely conceivable to him.
"Listen to this, and tell me what you think," he said. He cleared his throat. "'History will absolve us. Our cause is that just. We seek not profit but freedom, not mastery but equality. Freedom, however, cannot be won without sacrifice.'"
"Idiotic," said Speshnev. "You are a young fool who will get yourself killed."
"No, no," Castro said. "I think not. This is a very fine opportunity and I must seize it. It will win me followers on a grand scale. In grand scale is power. And so it is that―"
"What are you talking about?"
But the weirdness of the situation suddenly made itself known to the young man.
"What are you doing here? How did you find me? I never told you where I lived. It's supposed to be a secret. I don't even know who you are. I don't know your name."
"You know perfectly well who I am. You know why I am here, so names are not important. What is important is to get you to the next stage. Now, everywhere I go, I hear big things are coming and that they involve you. I insist that you tell me what all this is about."
"Opportunity. An alliance-your idea, incidentally-has produced a wondrous chance. Listen to this, and tell me I am not wise to grab this with everything I have."
He then proceeded to narrate the previous day's adventures, the shrewd council of El Colorado, the raid on the casino, the democracy of giving the people all the money, his own ability to stand forth in the moment and take command and-
"Oh, you fool! You blind, stupid young fool! God, you are so lucky. There might even still be time." Speshnev looked at his watch, saw that it was nearly eleven.
"I don't… Why are you angry? This is a wonderful opportunity to embarrass the Americans and the regime, without any harm being done. It redounds with honor and glory. It speaks to a glorious future. It―"
"Stop with your pap. How many men did you see in Colorado's cellar."
"Why, four or five. I wasn't really paying attention."
"Of course you weren't. Lesson number one: always pay attention. How many, idiot? Four or five?"
"Does it matter?"
"No, but you don't understand why, do you?"
The young man looked at him. Speshnev could see confusion on his face.
"Well, I―"
"Well you nothing. You could not possibly rob a big American casino with five men. There are too many hidden guns. It would be a slaughter. The American gangsters do not yield on such things easily, and they always have their revenge. Their whole culture depends upon revenge. No, El Colorado could not conceive of such a thing."
"I hadn't thought of that."
"'I hadn't thought of that.' Idiot! Fool! Is your brain a raisin?"
He clenched his brow, then hit himself in the head with his fist.
"Think! Think!" he ordered himself. "Five, you say. With machine guns."
"Thompsons. Like the police."
"The same. Hmmm. A bank? But he doesn't need money, he has money? What? What?"
"I don't―"
"Four or five men, machine guns. What else?"
"Negroes. Possibly foreign."
"Foreign?"
"Darker than our negroes. Almost black. You never see that here, especially five times over. A dark one, yes, once in a while, but not five of them in one―"
"Did you speak to them?"
"I saluted them. They didn't respond. I thought it odd."
"They didn't understand you. Of course, now I see. You are right, at last. They are foreigners, and can't stay with the quickness of the Cuban tongue and its lazy ways of working. Foreigners. Poor, desperate, dark men, brought in to…well, to what?"
"Rob?"
"No."
"Kill?"
"Yes, you would use such men to handle killing chores. They would be expendable, courageous, nameless. Perfect. But who? El Presidente? No, don't be absurd. He's too well protected. What about some ambassador? But for what reason―"
It suddenly dawned on him.
"Of course. Of course!"
But if his wisdom illuminated him, it did not animate him. Instead, a terrible weariness set over him. He had so much to do, so little time, so few weapons. Melancholy seeped through him.
"What are you talking about?"
"The American congressman. They'll kill him and his party for violating the inviolate rules of the brothel. Of course; it's pimp's honor at stake. And from his point of view, there's no negative attached. It'll make the government look bad, it'll terrify the American g
overnment, but it won't enrage and engage the American crime syndicate."
"Perhaps it will send a message."
"Fool. You have no instincts at all. More likely it'll produce invasion."
"Mother of God," said Castro. "And I―"
"And you have gone all over town affiliating yourself with it. Your mission is now to disaffiliate yourself. These stories you have spread must now be denounced as lies and slander. Go even to the police and tell them that El Colorado is the one."
"I―"
"Meanwhile, I must stop this. Do you have a machine gun?"
"No, of course not."
"Hmmm, I need a machine gun fast. Now where does one get a machine gun?"
Chapter 21
The sergeant laid his ambush well. He was not without experience, having fought in Argentina, Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic at different times in his career, in some cases escaping just ahead of the firing squad. But that was another story.
He did not select the first, or even the second, bend in the road that ran down Ciego de Avila province, about five miles inland from the sea, in the sudden burst of mangrove swamps. He knew that if his target had any security, security would be at its highest at that first bend, and again at the second bend. By the third bend, they would have settled down and grown used to the closeness of the trees, the sudden sense of impinging jungle after so long on sparse scrublands where cattle fed randomly.
He also needed two trees, unusually tall for the vegetation.
One tree was not enough.
It was a question of timing. The car had to slow to round the bend, and as it cleared the turn, but before it began to accelerate, the first tree had to be downed. It would take any driver three seconds to respond. By the time he had braked, and begun to turn around, or back up if he were clever, the second tree would come down, trapping the vehicle.
That's when his gunners would fire. He had three Thompsons, each with a fifty-round drum, and it was important that all three fire at once and that they lay down continuous fire. The car had to be still. He did not think these men were well enough trained to efficiently engage a moving target, even with the fast-firing Thompsons. He wanted the guns blazing for a good three to five seconds. He wanted the Cadillac ripped by three machine guns. Then he himself, on the other side of the road where the car would almost certainly stop, would raise up and quickly close the distance from the other side. He would pull his Star 9mm from his holster, advance to the automobile, and quickly fire a head shot into each of the four men, living or dead. Then it was only a matter of pulling their own automobile out and heading toward Cabanas Los Pinos, where a boat awaited them with their money aboard and orders to sail to Florida.
The sergeant was pleased. He had five good men besides himself. The innards of the two chickens he had slain last night had revealed by the sacred laws of Santeria that prospects were excellent. He had prayed hard to Odudua, mistress of the darkness of that blend of Bantu religion and Catholicism, and knew that she favored him, for she favored all killers. Her mission was to harvest their bounty and take it with her across the river to her dark land. The blood of the chickens, their squawking as their guts were pulled living from them, merely excited her.
The sergeant found his two trees without difficulty, an exceedingly good omen. He had examined the cuts his men had made in the trees and saw that the trunks had been expertly brought to the brink of collapse and one or two more ax strokes would deposit them exactly where he wanted them. The men with the Thompson guns knew how to shoot them well enough. He knew his Star intimately, and knew it would not fail him.
He checked his watch. It was nearly six; he knew the time was close but that he had a good hour before sundown.
"Sergeanto," came an excited cry from the man who'd just come sprinting around the bend, "I can see the big black car with the American flags on its fenders."
"Be ready, my boys. It is time and then we will be gone from this godforsaken country."
The men scattered to find their positions.
"My, my, my, my," said the congressman, "at last we git to look at something different. Not better, mind you, but different. Trees, or what they might call trees in some primitive place like Mississippi or Alabama."
"Yes, sir, Harry," agreed Lane Brodgins. "That flat land was damned boring. Like Kansas, only no damned cowboys or Indians to make it interesting."
"Lane, I ever tell you 'bout the time Joe Phillips of Montana's 13th and I got in a hell of a row over a navy typewriter reconditioning installation I had all sewn up for Fort Smith, but he had his heart set on setting up somewhere way the Sam Hill out there?"
"No, sir, don't believe you did," said poor Lane, whose capacity for eating Boss Harry's shit was beyond legendary and near to entering mythical.
"Well, I don't know how that fella got it in his mind the United States Navy needed to fix up its old typewriters way out yonder in the purple west. But I decided…"
Earl tried to close it out and concentrate. He saw the low dark trees suddenly rising up to swallow the Cadillac and nudged his elbow into Pepe's subtly, then with his hand pressing flatly downward signaled the driver to slow down.
"We slowing down, Pepe?" asked Boss Harry.
"Senor, I think is a curve coming up."
"Let's just take it easy through here," said Earl. He knew that nothing would happen on a road so straight and open that you could see a man three-hundred yards ahead and there wasn't a stick of cover anywhere. He supposed a sniper could take a long shot but doubted if anybody down here had that skill. He also worried about a mine or a command-detonated bomb of some sort, but again, nothing in Cuba had communicated the possibility of that kind of sophistication.
Darkness didn't swallow them, but it did grip them, as suddenly the trees, though rarely higher than a man, clustered close to the road, and through them, he could see pools of standing water, knotty clusters of tropical vegetation, the occasional bright flare of jungle blossom, the flutter and slither of pink shapes indicating the presence, here as elsewhere close to the sea, of pelicans.
The car slowed as Pepe negotiated the first bend, got around it, and saw a mile of straight road ahead before the road disappeared in blackness.
"You can speed up now, Pepe," said Lane. "We want to git there before dark. This here has been a long damned sit."
"Didn't know your goddamned island was so big," said Boss Harry. "I had the idea it was a little old place, and there wouldn't be so many miles between bars and women."
"In Guantanamo City, senor, is plenty bars and women, I tell you that."
"Now that's the kind of spirit I like!" said Harry. "I'm going to need a refresher pretty damned soon, and I don't mean no Coca-Cola!"
Speshnev had a car and a machine gun. The former he stole, the latter he rented. It took the last of his casino earnings, but he managed, rather quickly, to bribe an NKVD security goon assigned to a Russian freighter moored in the harbor to sneak into the strong room and remove one PPsH submachine gun, and one drum-seventy-one rounds-of 7.63mm ammunition. It was to be returned within twenty-four hours or the goon would come looking for Speshnev. The goon was a former Black Sea Marine, reportedly the toughest of the tough, so Speshnev had no desire to disappoint him. Now the gun lay across the seat awkwardly, its drum precluding easy stowage and causing it to roll about as he accelerated through the gears. Speshnev also had a direction and a route. A source in the American embassy had told the unctuous Pashin that the schedule had the congressman heading north to Guantanamo today, leaving at 9 A.M. With stops for lunch, they should pull in by eight in the evening, time enough for a night of carousing in the low dives of Guantanamo City.
He drove madly, following the big road through Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara provinces, honking rudely at lorries, careening around buses, fighting the traffic desperately. Around Sancti Spiritus, the traffic lessened, with the majority of it siphoning off toward the south, toward Santiago. But he knew the Americans would cl
ing to the upper road along the Caribbean coast, through Ciego de Avila and Camaguey, then on to Las Tunas and Holguin, that way avoiding the mess around Santiago. Effectively bypassing it-a faster way, though longer-they would then head south, and veer directly toward Guantanamo. He hoped that the Americans would stop for a nice lunch, would poke about here and there, and wouldn't press on.
Americans are lazy, he told himself. They are addicted to comfort. They're stupid. They're―
But he realized that Swagger wouldn't be stupid. He roared ahead.
The damned gun rolled to the left as the car accelerated, down empty roads, surrounded by arid meadows where here and there a cow grazed.
"Why are we slowing down?"
"I need to check some things," said Earl.
"What, Earl," said Brodgins. "We've still got a far piece to travel. The congressman is hot and tired."
Earl didn't say a word. He had commanded Pepe to stop and ahead he saw that the road took an aggressive left-hand crank, which mandated another slowdown, almost to a crawl. Something about it bothered him. So now he climbed from the front seat, hung himself over the open door, and just looked. What he was looking for was-well, he couldn't put a name to it. They had eased through two natural ambush sites without a problem, and according to the map would soon enough be beyond the swamps, and then could take their southern turn and head down to Gitmo.
But he was looking for something: some anomaly, some clue that things weren't as they should be. His eyes scanned, and what he saw was only dusty road disappearing as it bent to the left, low trees on each side, no movement, no wind, nothing at all. It was ungodly hot, and mosquitoes hummed around him, as the sweat crested to his skin and broke free.
"Aren't you being a little melodramatic here, Earl," Brodgins called from inside the car, where the air conditioning still pumped out cold, stale air. "Sir, can't you just tell him to get us there? This ain't easy on any of us."
"Earl, do you see something?" the congressman called. "Is that it? Lane, old Earl, he does have pretty good instincts for this sort of thing, I think you'd agree."
"Yes, sir, but sometimes these folks get an exaggerated sense of their importance."
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