by Cliff Ryder
NiteMaster signaled her. “Link to Alpha open.”
“Alpha, this is Primary. Give me a status report,” Kate said.
What she heard next made her jaw drop. “He told you what? ”
Once Marcus had given the clear signal, Jonas had begun his own patient stalking of Damason, slipping through the jungle with ease. The old skills had fully awakened, and his senses thrummed with the rush of information he was taking in—the dank, leafy smell of the jungle around him, the silent placement of each foot, the cautious scan of the trees and brush around him as he progressed. His instructor during GSG-9 training had often described silent infiltration as the most dangerous hunt, trying to capture or kill the ultimate prey, and at that moment, Jonas agreed completely.
He stole through the forest, each step bringing him closer to his goal.
A soft chime sounded in his ear, indicating an incoming transmission. Jonas checked the corner of the screen, grimacing at seeing Primary was calling. He ignored the call and kept moving forward. He was too close to start an argument with Kate, who was no doubt calling to find out exactly what he was doing.
He’d handle that later, regardless of the final conse-quences.
Taking a deep breath, Jonas kept sliding through the brush. The coming dawn was visible through the canopy, painting the trees in shades of pink and gold under a partly cloudy sky. For the final few steps, he switched off the thermal vision, preferring to use his own eyes. He was close enough to make out Damason hunched over in a crouch as he waited for his own prey. Another signal flashed in the corner of his vision. Marcus was getting a call, from Kate, no doubt. It was now or never.
Pistol at the ready, Jonas stepped out from the brush, about three yards away from the Cuban army major. He was careful to approach from directly behind the other man, not only making sure he wasn’t detected, but also preventing Marcus from taking out Damason before he could talk to him.
As he inched forward, Jonas saw a Soviet-era Dragunov sniper rifle held in the other man’s hands, as steady as a rock, and no doubt ready to fire. Taking another slow step, he also saw that Damason didn’t have his finger on the trigger yet.
One last step brought him right behind the waiting would-be assassin, close enough to touch him. Jonas resisted the urge to place his hand on the man’s shoulder, and slowly lowered his submachine gun instead.
Placing the muzzle of the suppressor to the man’s ear, Jonas whispered. “Do not move, or I will be forced to kill you.”
Damason froze, not daring to twitch a muscle. His first thought was not for his own safety, but for Lopez. If this man was behind him, then his sergeant must already be dead.
“What do you want?” he said calmly.
“First, set down the rifle. I know this will be hard to believe, but I’m here to help you.” The voice sounded strange, as if it was filtered through some kind of electronic device.
“I’m here on behalf of the United States government.”
Damason was sure the man was lying, but he set the Dragunov aside for the moment. “They would never send an American agent down here—too risky,” he said.
“I never said I was an American, just that I work with them. Right now, another man is aiming a rifle at your back.
I’m the only thing standing between you and him.”
“Is he with you?”
“Yes.”
“But you have come to warn me? Protect me?”
“From that, and a lot more. Over the past forty-eight hours, the plan to assassinate Castro has been detected and stopped. There will be no reinforcement from the mercenaries and your contact in Miami, Rafael Castilo, is dead.”
“How do you know all of this?” He felt the pressure of the gun barrel behind his ear ease, and looked behind him to see the man stepping back.
The gunman wore a strange mask that covered his entire face, making him resemble something out of a science-fiction movie. But the weapon in his hand never wavered.
The man reached up and pulled the mask off.
“I was posing as the arms dealer who sold your people the Stingers. It was all a setup. Our people are tracking the inserted men even as I speak, and I was sent to stop you by any means necessary.”
Damason’s jaw dropped, and he stood up and turned fully around. “But the U.S. has been trying to kill the Castros for decades. Now, when there is a real chance for that to happen, you are sent to stop me? I will have Raul in my sights in less than one hour. There will not be anyone here who can stop me. Yet you are doing just that.”
“Major Valdes, please, listen to me. This is not the way.
Although the death of the Castros would certainly be justified for what they have done to your people, there is a very good chance that it would also tear the country apart in a civil war that could last for months, perhaps years. We’ve heard of the rumblings of discontent among your generals—how long would it be before one of them decided he could take the whole island over, and place you all right back where you were?”
Damason shook his head. “No, the plan will work—it has to. The people cannot take any more of this—struggling to survive every day while rich tourists come in and support the current government with their money, and nothing comes down to help the people. Castro trains doctors, then sends them to other countries, while our own people are sick every day, forced to languish in filthy, ill-equipped hospitals. People with advanced degrees working as cabdrivers, or, God forbid, prostitutes, because there are no jobs for some, and for others, they cannot make enough to survive.”
“But change has been coming—slowly, yes, I admit it—
but surely you must have seen it. There are those in the government who feel as you do, I’m sure of it. Once the current leadership is gone—”
“When? When will that be? People have been saying that for forty years, and yet it continues. He continues. They will always continue, unless something is done to change it, now.”
Damason looked at the man again, a nagging awareness in his mind that there was something very familiar about him, but not able to figure out what. “You came to warn me. I say that if you truly want to stop me, you will have to kill me.
Otherwise I am going to pick up that rifle and complete my mission.”
“Damason, I’m asking you to listen to reason, not gamble your country’s future on a wild plan that has no hope of succeeding.”
“Even if the plan fails, I will not. My name will be spoken in the same breath as other true heroes who fought for Cuba’s freedom.” Damason’s eyes gleamed with righteous fervor.
“At the very least, I will have done something that no other person, no other government, could accomplish. I will have helped put an end to the dictatorship that has strangled our country.”
He turned back to the Dragunov rifle on the ground. “If you truly wish to stop me, then you will have to shoot me.” Picking up the rifle, he aimed at the yard again, waiting either for a bullet to punch through the back of his head and kill him, or for an armored limousine to drive up and for his target to appear.
“Goddamn it, get out of the way so I can pop this guy,” Marcus muttered as he stared through the Leupold Ultra M3A scope of his M24A2 sniper rifle. He had tried contacting Beta before he had taken his mask off, but the older man had turned off his communication system, leaving Marcus hanging in the wind.
After he had told Kate what Beta had said, and what he was doing, she had given Marcus his marching orders in clipped sentences. “Continue your observation.” There was a pause.
“If Jonas does not carry out his primary mission, you are to terminate the subject. If Beta tries to stop you—” Marcus couldn’t help noticing the pause “—he is to be terminated, as well, then you are to depart the area immediately afterward.”
Although the orders sounded strange to his ears, Marcus wasn’t totally surprised by them. The mission came above everything else, even a fellow operative. If Beta had suddenly gone rogue, for whatever reason, then
he was a threat and had to be taken down, just like Valdes. Marcus hoped that wasn’t the case. He liked the guy, and didn’t want to kill him if he didn’t have to.
But why is he wasting time jawing with this dude? Marcus peered through the scope, watching Valdes’s face as he apparently argued with the other man. He’s got cojones, that’s for sure. While Marcus could have taken the shot at that moment, he was concerned that Beta might be wounded, as well, or that Valdes might be holding an unseen gun on the other man.
Marcus considered shifting position, but something was nagging at him. Why did Beta remove his mask? Marcus was pretty sure the Cuban army major wouldn’t welcome with a big hug the man he had earlier thought was an illegal arms dealer. But for the life of him, Marcus couldn’t figure out why Beta hadn’t simply taken him out. He had him dead to rights.
Marcus stared through the scope, taking in every detail of the man he had been assigned to eliminate. His finger tightened on the trigger and he breathed in and out one last time as he prepared to take the shot.
Lowering his gun, Jonas was at a loss. He could not order Damason to stop, and he was sure he couldn’t kill him.
There was only one card left to play.
“Major Valdes—Damason. Look at me.”
The Cuban officer slowly turned and regarded him with a flat stare.
“Earlier I d told you I worked with the Americans. Before that, I worked for my homeland of Germany, and traveled around the world, hunting terrorists. One of the places I was sent was Cuba, back in the early 1970s.”
“And?”
“While here, I met a young woman by the name of Marisa,” Jonas said.
Jonas saw Damason flinch at the mention of his mother. The soldier took a closer look at Jonas, as if really taking in his face for the first time, his eyes widening. “You cannot mean…”
Jonas nodded, not trusting his voice to say the words. He was drowning in unfamiliar waters, unsure of what to say that could possibly make this man understand everything that had come between them over the decades.
Damason stared at him, his eyes round with shock. “She told me…before she died…how my father had been killed.
An accident at the sugar mill…”
Jonas swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “I—I couldn’t stay with her, nor could I get her out of the country. It wasn’t possible at the time.”
“So you just fucked her and then ran off? You left my mother and me to fend for ourselves in this hellhole of a country, alone?”
“I came back as soon as I could—I tried to find her—”
Jonas said.
“You had six years to do that. She died when I was six, leaving me to be raised by the state.You turned me into exactly what I am today, padre. ” The last word held no warmth at all.
“I had no idea that you were even alive. I couldn’t find any records of her here—”
Damason flew at Jonas, slamming into his chest, sending him tumbling to the ground, the gun flying from his hand.
Snatching up the weapon, the soldier knelt and aimed it at his father’s head. “I would think you would be enjoying this more, padre, seeing what I have become. You must have killed in your line of work, yes?”
Jonas nodded, trying to suck in enough air to speak.
“As have I, many times. Tell me something—did they all deserve it?”
Jonas thought about that for a moment. He had killed in defense of his country, and in defense of liberty, but could he truly say that everyone who had fallen in his sights had been guilty? “I—I don’t know,” he stammered.
“In my line of work, I was often ordered to arrest people who were innocent, who just wanted a better life for themselves or their families. Somewhere inside me, I knew that, but I ignored it, choosing to believe they were enemies of the revolution. But there came a time when I couldn’t stomach the lies I told myself, and that was when I knew I had to do what was right. So tell me, father, is that why you came here? To do what is right? Or are you just here to complete your mission, doing exactly what your superiors tell you to do? Is the fact that we are related just a mere twist of chance?”
“If I had wanted to simply complete the mission, you would already be dead,” Jonas said. He heaved a shuddering breath.
“Instead of sending my partner in here alone to kill you, however, I came to see you face-to-face, to try to prevent you from going down this road, that once started, cannot be undone.”
“You are very, very late to be trying to tell me what I should do. My life is not even my own anymore—it has been shaped and molded by a dictator for his own power. Perhaps if my father had been here, things might have been different.”
“But they still can be. You can leave this place, and make a new life somewhere else.” Jonas hated the pleading tone in his voice, but if it would get through to his son, he would beg if he had to. “Come with me. It’s not too late. You can start over, do anything you want to.”
Damason regarded him with a strange expression. “What about my family? You are a grandfather—a grandfather to my children, and I do not even know your name.”
Jonas pushed himself up onto his elbows. “My name is Jonas, Jonas Schrader. I can help get them out, too. Your wife and children can grow up in the U.S., in Germany, wherever you would like them to live. I can arrange it all.
For the sake of your family, don’t do this, don’t throw away your life and put them in the same position you were in.”
Jonas thought he had convinced him, for Damason seemed to relax for a moment, but then he gripped the MP-5 tighter and thrust the barrel into Jonas’s face. “It was you who put me in that position. It is precisely for my children and the thousands of children throughout Cuba who are forced into serving the revolution every year that I am doing this.” He sat back on his heels, the weapon drifting off target.
“I believe it was an American who said long ago, ‘The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ I will do my part to help that tree plant its roots. And now I ask you—as your son, who has never had the chance to ask anything of you before—to do the same.”
Keeping the submachine gun trained on Jonas, Damason crab-walked back to his original position and turned to watch the refinery again. He picked up the sniper rifle. Jonas pushed himself to his feet and stood for a long moment, staring at Damason. Then he slipped the mask back over his head, turned and vanished into the jungle.
“Jesus, what the hell was that all about?” Marcus had almost taken the shot when he had seen Damason turn the tables.
“I thought for sure he was going to waste you.”
“And if he had, you would have shot him, correct?” The older man’s voice was neutral, toneless.
“Damn right I would have.”
“Kate contacted you.”
“Sure she did.”
“Then I suggest you carry out your orders.”
“What? Look, I don’t know what just went down between you two—”
“What went down is that I failed to stop an assassin who is going to murder a Third World dictator if you do not pull that trigger. Now carry out your mission, Alpha.”
Marcus was struck silent by the command. He had killed men before, and the mission was worthy—kill one to save hundreds, probably thousands.
“Do it!” Jonas’s voice cracked in his ears.
Marcus steadied himself, settled the crosshairs of the scope on the officer’s upper back, exhaled and, when his lungs were empty, squeezed the trigger. The suppressed M24 made a muffled sound as it fired. The target jerked, then slumped over, the sniper rifle falling from his lifeless hands.
Marcus straightened up and replaced the covers on the sight, then slung his rifle. He crept forward to the edge of the clearing in time to see Jonas step back out, his mask in his hand again. He walked over to the still form, knelt and took the body in his arms, enfolding it close to his chest.
Although he didn’t make any sound, his body shook
with silent sobs.
Marcus gave him as long as he could—a minute, perhaps—then came up behind him. “Jonas, we have to go.”
His back still to the younger man, Jonas slipped on the mask, drew his pistol and stood up. “Let’s move out.”
With Marcus in the lead, they headed due north again, slipping through the foliage to the edge of the refinery’s perimeter. The sun’s rays were illuminating the eastern horizon, with golden-and-red fingers.
Just as they were about to leave the jungle to cross the first field, Marcus held up his hand, and Jonas froze.
“I thought I saw something to the east, but there’s a lot of heat bleeding off the factory, so I can’t be sure.” Marcus gave himself a second. “Can’t confirm it—let’s keep moving before someone does spot us.”
He took a step out into the open, and the pop of an AK-47 on full auto shattered the silence. Marcus spun to the ground, hit by at least three rounds that perforated his clothes and chest. Sudden pain washed over him.
“Marcus!” Jonas hit the dirt and crawled to him. “Hold still!”
“Shit—wasn’t planning on buying it here. Funny, my arm doesn’t work anymore.”
Jonas swung his MP-5 up and peered down the sights through his mask. Rifle rounds spit over his head. They both heard shouting from the sugar mill. Clawing off his mask, Marcus lifted his head just as Jonas fired a long burst, then dropped the MP-5 and picked up Marcus’s rifle. “He’s down. Now, let’s get you out of here.”
“No—I’m not going anywhere,” Marcus said.
“The hell you aren’t. I’m not leaving you here to die.
Now, get up!” Jonas yanked on Marcus’s shirt, hauling him upright and slapping a pressure bandage in his hand. “Keep that tight on your shoulder. This is going to hurt—a lot.” He bent over and threw Marcus over his shoulder in a modified fireman’s carry. Marcus found himself staring at the ground as white spots faded from his vision.
“Jonas, you’re gonna get us both killed.”
“Don’t talk, we’re getting out of here. Keep that bandage tight against your shoulder.”
Unable to speak, Marcus shook his head and held out his hand. Jonas held it tightly as he carried him into the forest.