Havana es-3

by Stephen Hunter

"All right," the sergeant called. "Move forward another ten feet. He's got to be here somewhere."

  "I think this greaseball has shit himself to nothingness," came a jeer, followed by laughter.

  "If so, you'd smell the shit. I think he's somewhere down the hill and he's put a bullet in his greaseball head."

  The soldiers moved onward. It would be another hour before they were far enough away for Speshnev to move, and then he'd only have a few minutes before the main body of troops got up here, with the dogs, and picked up the trail ahead.

  "Are we safe?" muttered the boy, when at last Speshnev released his iron grip.

  "Hardly," said the Russian.

  "They're over," said Earl.

  "How do you know? I didn't see a thing."

  "The birds. A flock of 'em just blew out of the brush, fast and sudden."

  "Earl, birds fly out of the jungle all the time."

  "When they take off on their own, the head Johnny goes first, his lieutenants follow, then come the privates and then the gals. When they all blow out at once, they've been startled."

  "Maybe it was a boar or a coyote."

  "Ain't much moving about a forest during daylight, and with all them soldiers over there, there'd be even less. No, it's them."

  Earl slipped the binoculars back into their case. He picked up the rifle, ran a last check over it, unlocking and easing back the bolt to double-check that a.30–06 nested comfortably in the chamber, then quietly relocked it, rechecked the safety. By this time, Frenchy had come over and kneeled next to him with his carbine at the ready.

  "Okay," said Earl, "he's got to go left because it's thinnest there. He's got to get down fast because that boat is getting in close and his meet-up is probably scheduled for 1600 hours and that boat just can't linger there forever, not with all the naval activity this close to Gitmo. He'll go down left, there's a natural fold he'll be in, then they have to avoid that open field, so they'll have to detour around that before they reach a last line of trees. I'm betting there's a creek over that way, 'cause you can see the trees are greener, they're getting more water."

  "I didn't see that."

  "No, you didn't. Anyhow, I have no way of knowing which way they'll go around that field, but I do know they won't walk down the middle of it. I'm betting men racing down a hill ahead of dogs and troops are going to be hellish thirsty and the temptation of that water will be too much, since they have to go that way anyhows. So that's where they'll head. And that's why we have to be there first. He'll pick up we're on him if we're still moving into place as he gets there."

  "Sounds good to me," Frenchy said sportily.

  "It don't matter how it sounds to you," Earl replied. "That's how we'll do it."

  In many ways, coming down is worse than going up, especially if speed is an issue.

  Speed was an issue.

  Speshnev could see the trawler just a few hundred yards off the beach, yet it was still half a mile away-downhill-and the craft couldn't linger there forever. He knew he had to move them quickly.

  But that meant his muscles and the boy's had to work against gravity and momentum, always on the tippy, tippy edge of disaster, their legs buckling in pain as the fibers clenched in exactly the opposite way as they'd clenched when climbing.

  He heard the boy huffing and puffing beneath, and there was an edge of panic to all that labored breath. Once, already, the boy had lost control, and gone shooting by him, hellbent on destruction, on a broken leg or shattered ankle, and Speshnev had grabbed him and a chunk of brush simultaneously and guided them to a slow-down and then a stop.

  "I can't go any further."

  "If you value your eyes, you'll stop complaining and start moving."

  "Oh, Christ," said the boy.

  "Yes, call to Christ, but whomever you call to, get going."

  "I am so thirsty. I have dust in my throat."

  "There's a whole ocean out there for you."

  Speshnev looked back. As yet no dogs had crested the hill, but it could happen at any second, and here, where the forest was thin and rocky, where their feet kicked up puffs of dust and shale, they'd be easily spotted and brought under fire. And under fire, there'd be no escape. The Cubans weren't any kind of shooters, but there were enough of them, and their fusillade would either bring down the runners dead and wounded, or pin them for more leisurely fates.

  "Go, go."

  Off they ran, trying to control the wildness that built in their limbs as they rushed down, fast but not too fast, close to the edge but not over it.

  The boy gasped in agony, and even the mighty Speshnev, escape artist and ambush master, assassin and agent, guerilla and infantry commander, had to admit this was the most difficult moment in his long war against the forces of darkness. His ankles ached in the effort and the body's fear undercut everything. He didn't think they'd make it, not without a bad fall and if the fall were bad enough, it could end them. And the boat was so close.

  The boy collapsed, heaving.

  "I can't go on. I'm spent. Leave me."

  "Stop it. I don't have that choice."

  "I'm gone, blown, finished. I have no―"

  "Look, ahead, beyond the meadow. Do you see it?"

  "The boat? It could be miles away, that's how little chance I have of―"

  The dogs barked. Speshnev looked up and saw three of them, unleashed, against the crest. They howled to indicate they'd picked up the scent and waited patiently for their masters and permission to bound down the hill.

  The boy was beyond caring.

  "Not the boat," Speshnev said. "No, look down there, just beyond the field. See where the trees are so much greener? Water. There's a creek bed there. We'll head there, we can make it before the men get over the top. Water, Castro, it'll revive you. Once you get the water, you'll recover instantly. You're simply dehydrated, that's all. Come on―"

  And he lifted the boy up, feeling the tremors of surrender in the lax musculature and the heart beating desperately, the lungs sucking over dried lips for oxygen, and never quite getting enough. "Come on, now, just fight it another two hundred yards, and there's salvation!"

  Frenchy had never believed in it. Not for a second. It seemed some fantasy to him, some improbable crusade that this Davy Crockett from Arkansas were pulling on him. But then he saw them: two men, one of them demonstrably the young political leader Castro, rushing helter-skelter downhill exactly where Earl had said they'd come, their arms windmilling for balance as they fought the pull of gravity, both ashen and desperate, both craven with thirst.

  If he felt any triumph, Earl didn't show it. His manner was glum, matter-of-fact, professional. Now was time for the shooting.

  Earl unslung the rifle. They were about two hundred yards out, on a slight ridge, and Earl had sited them so they had a good line of fire straight onto the widest part of the creek, where a beaten man could drown his face in sweet green water and suck it down, and cool his weary, booted feet. No limbs, no brush, nothing interceded to deflect the bullet. It was a simple matter for someone as sure a shot as Earl.

  "You can make it?" Frenchy nevertheless asked, nervous.

  "Should I cover and lay fire on in case you miss?"

  "Shut up," said Earl.

  Earl squirmed some, found a good shooting position and drew the rifle to him as, now three hundred yards away, the men rushed toward the water. They'd drink and rest for a minute, then hurry onward. Frenchy turned and saw that the trawler had gotten within fifty yards of the beach; it would be an easy slosh, and its cargo safely aboard, the boat would set fair wind for Jamaica and be gone in minutes.

  Earl locked his knee and rose and hunched simultaneously behind the rifle, feeling his way into a solid shooting position. Frenchy squatted next to him, watching the prey through binoculars as they approached.

  He had a moment's study of Castro, familiar from the picture but weirdly different here, in the flesh. Frenchy thought of a big baby at one of his prep schools, sent there by an overmanly fat
her for some toughening up, a boy who cried each night and was too fat for sports. The boy disappeared one night, actually beating Frenchy out of the school, though Frenchy's crime wasn't melancholy and self-loathing but simple cheating. Castro had the same gray look of defeat, and the flesh through his face trembled at each step, loose and slack. His lips rose like a wave under the vibration as the foot struck the ground, and Frenchy saw not heroic intensity or worker's will to endure but simple, abject fear, a face bathed in sweat, a shirt translucent with the moisture it had captured, everywhere baby fat and terror at play on the big, clumsy, boy's body. He was infantile, a class goat picked on by the football captain.

  Frenchy let the binocs slide left to see this mysterious Mr. X who was running the show. What he saw was a wiry European in a dark bandanna like a peasant, and a peasant's dirty smock and sandals, but something no peasant could ever have: intense and impenetrable dignity.

  It occurred to Frenchy that here was the real thing, so rarely glimpsed, almost mythological in Agency culture: a high-ranking, superbly trained and motivated true Red agent. He couldn't help but be impressed, for even as he watched, he could tell the boy was lost in panic but the old goat was still clever and making shrewd decisions even as they reached the water.

  "That guy looks like a Russian," he hissed, so excited he could hardly stand it. A victory of immense proportions was just before him. Kill Castro, as Plans had decreed, and capture this guy! What a coup! What secrets he could unlock! Why, you could build a whole career out of one afternoon's work and bask in sheer glory forever.

  "Kill the Cuban," he said, "wound the Russian. Hit him in the leg, the knee. We'll take him. He's unarmed. Jesus Christ, what a catch."

  The boy collapsed in the pond, and thrust his head into the water. But Speshnev grabbed him before he could gulp in the gallons.

  "No. Don't lose control. Small, easy sips, wet your lips, let it hydrate your body. If you swallow everything, you'll bloat and your internal temperature will go out of balance and you'll collapse. I'm not carrying you."

  The boy fought him for just a second, bucking like a horse to get his snout into the wet, but then yielded. He dipped in demurely, and sipped.

  "Excellent," said Speshnev.

  He himself at last bent to the surface and admitted the water, and felt the miracle of it as it spread hope through his body. The sheer pleasure of it was better than anything sexual.

  But in a second he was back in the game, pulling the boy from the water, letting him rest on the bank, but at the same time looking around.

  The boat was so close now. A line of trees cut the beach off from the creek, and then it was but a hundred yards or so until they cut across the nakedness of the sands. Speshnev looked back, at the crest of the hill. The dogs were still baying; the soldiers had not arrived yet and as the distance was over a half a mile, he knew he was too far for any kind of accurate shooting.

  He took a quick scan about, and his senses saw nothing except the blend of forest and jungle that was Cuba, the palms jutting out among the pines, the odd bright flower, the singing of birds, the bright sun above, behind some clouds.

  "Here, wrap this around your head, it'll keep you fresh for this last little bit. Hurry."

  He pulled off his dark bandanna, soaked it in the water, then handed it over.

  Then he heard the shot.

  Earl didn't like it. The problem was the intimacy. In battle, over iron sights, the enemy was a blur. You pressed, the gun fired, and down he went and you moved on. If you were close enough to see the bullets hit and blow holes in him, then the fight was desperate and crazed and horribly dangerous, so there was no time for thought, you operated on instinct alone. But the sniper's curse is his intimacy and now, the magnifications of the eight-power scope blew up the faces of the men who lay before him.

  He saw not a Red politico but a fat boy with greasy hair and an unmolded, unformed look to his face. And he saw the man who'd twice saved his life, crafty and professional, almost on the verge of what appeared to be a great coup. This man was the enemy, he told himself, and tried to believe it desperately.

  Earl had always followed his orders. That was the compass heading of his life.

  The Winchester was set solid against his shoulder, supported by bone not muscle, his body itself solid against the ground, helped by the cupping effect of the slight rise against which he curled.

  "You can hit one guy, throw the bolt and hit the other, say, in the knee?" Frenchy implored.

  He didn't say a word.

  "You want me to get set to move down there with the carbine? If you hit the old guy in the leg, I know we can take him alive. He's no dummy. If he doesn't go with us, the Cubans will pick his bones clean in a torture chamber. He'll see it."

  There was no waver in the crosshairs, so solidly was the instrument supported. He had examined each face and now set the reticule on the boy's neck, under his ear, in the softness just behind the jaw; the shot would blow out his spinal column and he would be a footnote in Cuban history. Earl knew the arc to target two was short and that he could flick the bolt in a second. He thought the Russian would be quick, but how quick? He guessed he'd roll right, and Earl could hit him in the fat part of the thigh, hoping to miss the femoral which would bleed him out in minutes. He had an image of the man squawking, his hands flown to the wound in his leg, trying to stanch the flow. He would know exactly who shot him.

  He felt the trigger come back against the urging of his fingertip, as it drained the ounces out of the mechanism.

  He put the rifle down.

  "You know what? I ain't pulling your trigger."

  Frenchy looked at him.

  "What?"

  "Forget it. I don't do this kind of thing. It ain't my way. Do your own killing, junior."

  "I-You have to. For God's sake, Earl, this isn't a joke. This isn't a game. This is what it is, what we do, what our country needs. You have to, for God's sake."

  Earl just spat into the dust.

  When he looked back, Frenchy had raised the carbine and pointed it at him.

  "Earl, you will do what I say. You will do it. Do you get it? You don't have a choice. Now, fast, before they get away."

  Earl chuckled.

  "There's another trigger ain't getting pulled, kid. Don't make me laugh."

  And Frenchy didn't. The rifle came down.

  "This is so wrong," he said.

  "Let's let the Cubans decide what to do with this boy."

  He went back to the scope and put the crosshairs into the exact center of the distance between Castro and the Russian, on the shimmering surface of the water, so that each would feel the shockwave of the bullet as it roared past, and each would know that they were taken, and saw the Russian's hand dip into the water and come out with a soaked handkerchief. The boy reached to touch it and in that instant, as each man was connected to the handkerchief between them, he pressed the trigger.

  When the scope cleared recoil and came back down, mist still hung in the air from the bullet smashing into the water, and the Cuban was running crazily toward the beach.

  The Russian had disappeared already.

  Chapter 46

  Lieutenant Sarria dreamed of caramel-skinned beauties, with white teeth and flowers in their hair. He was fifty-four years old and much darker than caramel. His hair was salt and pepper, his body long and sinewy and his eyes sad. He dreamed of young ladies often. The way they walked, with music in their steps. The jiggle of their breasts under their blouses. Their behinds, proud and sassy. The magic in their smiles, their eyes. Their toes, long and slender and pink below, caramel atop, their―

  He was jerked awake by a noise.

  "What was that?" said Corporal De Guama, making coffee.

  "It sounded like a shot," said Private Morales.

  All three men wore the green-brown uniforms of the Cuban national police, though without ties and much in need of cleaning and pressing. They were normally stationed at Sevilla, just a few miles in
land, but with all this madness of the insurrection at Moncada, they had been sent out to set up an outpost on the outskirts of Siboney, the beach town. When they got to the beach town, though, the lieutenant decided it was unlikely the fleeing man would come this way, where it was so populated. So he had moved west down the beach by jeep and been unable to locate quite the perfect place until, well beyond Siboney, they came upon an old planter's shack, where they'd been for a day, out of radio contact or telephone contact, but ready to defend Cuba and the president with their lives, meanwhile catching up on much-needed sleep. Sarria would never rise above lieutenant-high enough for a negro-and the other two were men whose ambitions had been ground into indifference by the rigors of avoiding duty. All three men were armed, but two of the three revolvers carried between them were empty. Only the lieutenant's held ammunition, though as it had held that same ammunition since 1934, he wasn't entirely certain that it would fire.

  "Well," said the lieutenant, "I suppose we'd better go do something."

  "I suppose," said De Gauma, sadly. It seemed that something always interrupted his coffee. "May I finish my coffee first?"

  "He always wants the coffee," said the corporal. "He lives for the coffee."

  "Well, De Gauma, actually, no, I'd prefer if you just went along this time. Would that be all right?"

  Sarria wasn't being sarcastic. He wore the mantle of command somewhat unsurely. He genuinely wished to know if it was all right with the private.

  "No, no, it's fine," De Guama said.

  The three men rose. Morales could not find his cap, and De Gauma had taken his boots off.

  "I'll have to stay in the sand, where it's soft."

  "Yes, yes, that's fine," said Sarria.

  They stepped out and saw only what they had seen for two days: the blinding brightness of the beach, the blinding blue of the bay, the blinding though lighter blue of the sky, and the dark green of the forest here where the Sierra Maestra plunged so precipitously into the water. The sun was hot, the wind was still. Prickly sweat came at their hairlines immediately and began to run down their cheeks. The air had been superheated by the sun and to breathe was not pleasant. It was July, after all.