As if on cue, a pair of American jets dived on the column, their engines screaming and shrieking. Rockets and machine gun bullets churned up the road and the lead trucks. A couple of them tried to dodge, but the first vehicle had quickly become a mass of flaming wreckage, and getting around it fatally slowed the column's survivors.
The jets returned for a second pass and three of the four remaining trucks were destroyed. Men were falling out of them, most didn't move. The driver of the fifth put his truck in reverse and tried to back out as fast as he could. It wasn't fast enough and a third pass by the American fighters destroyed him.
A couple of men staggered out and ran away across a field. "I'm glad they're not heading for us," said Cullen. "I'd hate to have to kill them."
"Why?"
Cullen smiled coldly. "Because now they can return to their little communist compadres and remind them that we rule the sky and the roads and anybody moving down a road is going to catch hell."
"I like that, gunny."
"Yeah, and just think how much shit we could cause if we could only contact our friends offshore."
They waited fifteen minutes to make sure the planes didn't return and moved cautiously towards the wreckage of the column. Only a couple of Cubans were still alive and they were in terrible shape, missing limbs and otherwise horribly mangled. They would die soon and there was nothing the two marines could do, so they steeled themselves and checked the debris for anything useful. Another dozen or so were dead. An actual count would have been difficult considering the fact that many of the bodies had been destroyed. Besides, who cared?
"Got me an AK47," Ward said happily, "and a couple of clips of ammo."
Cullen had found another one for himself along with a Russian made pistol. It was a 9mm Markov automatic pistol and a welcome addition to their arsenal, even though it came with only the bullets in the clip.
"Belated Merry Christmas, Ward. Too bad the other Cubans were carrying old weapons. Christ, some of these guys had old American Springfields from 1898."
They completed their search by taking some Cuban rations and blankets. "Okay, Ward, time to go back to base and tell Ross what happened."
Chapter Ten
Finding a way to plug into the phone lines had proven to be an unexpectedly difficult problem. The lines generally ran parallel to the roads which meant anyone climbing the poles during the day would be visible, while climbing them at night meant they might meet up with Cuban soldiers who were marching south.
Finally, they found a line that ran from the road and down a long driveway to a large farm compound and which wasn't all that high off the ground. Ward climbed a low pole, clamped on, and scooted down as quickly as he could as they all held their breath, praying that no one would see him. The others quickly buried the line in a shallow trench that ran about a hundred yards into some covering bushes. Cullen had once again gone back onto the base and cannibalized some telephone wires that were lying all over Guantanamo.
"I sincerely hope this is the last time any one of us has to go into that place," Cullen said of their forays into Gitmo. "It's just too damn dangerous."
Andrew Ross couldn't argue. But they needed the wire and that made the risk necessary.
It had been agreed that Cathy would be the one to make the phone call on the logical assumption that she, as a woman, wouldn't be taken for a soldier by anyone who happened to be listening in. They had no idea to what extent the Cubans monitored the phone calls of ordinary people. She only hoped her Spanish was adequate enough and that she wouldn't be connected to Finland by a confused operator. They all wondered if phone connections to the U.S. still existed. It was time to find out. If this didn't work they were going to call the Canadian Embassy in Havana and ask them to relay a message to the fictitious “mother house” of the poor confused Canadian missionaries. Cathy took a deep breath and, in halting Spanish, contacted the operator.
A few minutes later and hundreds of miles to the north, Charley Kraeger was jolted out of his reveries by the sound of the phone ringing. His thoughts had largely revolved around Elena and what she might look like without any clothes.
"Hello," he said, and then, realizing it was on the special line, quickly added in a cheerful voice, "Canadian Evangelical Missions."
A woman with a heavy Spanish accent inquired if he would accept a collect call from a Sister Catherine from the Canadian Evangelical Missions in Cuba.
Charley thought quickly. Who the hell was Sister Catherine? Was it another jokester? He'd had a couple of them since the line had been set up and wanted to strangle them all. But the operator sounded like she was Cuban.
He didn't have a choice. "I will accept the call."
What the hell, he thought. It was the government's money. As he waited the moment it took for the call to be connected, he scanned the short list of missing civilians for anyone named Catherine. He grinned as he found a young teacher named Catherine Malone.
"Hello?" It was a young woman's hesitant voice. The line was surprisingly clear considering they were in contact with an enemy country. "This is Sister Catherine. To whom am I speaking?"
"This is the Reverend Malone," he said, in a sudden burst of genius using her last name to indicate he knew who she was.
He heard her sob and then laugh on the phone and immediately decided he liked her. "Reverend Malone, it is so good to hear your voice after all that has happened."
"Are you safe?"
"For the moment yes. There is no fighting near us, although that could change at any moment if the capitalist American aggressors should attack. We would like your help in either getting us out or getting us to safety."
"How many are you?" Charley asked.
"Along with the Reverend Ross and Reverend Cullen, there are five others," and she rattled off their names. Kraeger and one of his assistants quickly checked them off a list of the missing and exulted at the find.
"Are there any other members of our flock in the area?" Kraeger inquired.
"None that I know of, your eminence."
Your eminence? He nearly choked to keep from laughing. He wanted to hug her. "How can we reach you?"
"Reverend, the telephone is very uncertain under the circumstances," she said and added a couple of addresses where mail could be dropped off. The addresses were coordinates on a map for a large field nearby.
"Sister," Charley said soothingly, "we will make every effort to contact you, perhaps even drop in on you. Be comforted. No one has forgotten you. It may take a couple of days, even nights, but be assured that you are uppermost in our thoughts and prayers."
"Thank you, Reverend," Cathy said and hung up. The others were gathered around and staring at her. Andrew had managed to hear the conversation and was breathing heavily in relief. He gave a thumbs-up to the others who all grinned foolishly.
Cathy was crying. She — they — no longer felt so alone and lost. She felt her abdomen cramp. She felt it again and started to laugh. Her period was starting. How hilarious. She'd hated having her period since she'd had her first at age thirteen, and now she was thrilled because it meant she wasn't pregnant by that pig of a Cuban soldier. She wasn't pregnant and they'd contacted the United States. She started to laugh and cry at the same time. Life was good and going to get better. She hoped.
General Juan Ortega munched on a piece of fruit and looked across the table at Colonel, now General, Humberto Cordero, commandant of the prison camp housing the American POWs. "Humberto, if I didn't need you and if you weren't related to my wife I would have you executed, just like I almost did to that maniacal pilot who flew me to Havana and back."
Cordero laughed. "If you did that, my general, you would have no one to trust and no one to make you look good by displaying my own inadequacies."
Ortega sighed. "True enough."
"And if I was so bad, then why would you have promoted me and given me control of all Santiago?"
"I promoted you because you are an honest man in your own way and, de
spite the fact that you have planned the prison so insanely that the inmates now run it. You have done a reasonably good job considering the human waste matter I gave you as guards."
Cordero smiled. "And now you have blessed me with a militia division of eight thousand untrained and poorly armed men with which I am to defend Santiago from the American hordes. How can I possibly thank you, dear cousin?"
"By delaying them for at least a couple of minutes when they arrive, my equally dear cousin. No, I have no illusions. The Americans can sweep in and retake Guantanamo if they are willing to pay the price. Their planes fly overhead unopposed and attack anything they think is military. If it weren't for the fact that our forces have been disbursed so widely, our losses would already be unacceptable. You have done well by scattering your division throughout the civilian areas of Santiago."
Cordero shrugged. "Which is against the Geneva Convention, but who cares? I didn't sign the damn thing."
"Nor did I and neither did Comrade Fidel, although I have been told to try and adhere to its terms as much as possible. Tell me, what are your thoughts on the American prisoners in your control?"
"They are quiet," Cordero said, "which is worrying. Their senior officer, Major Hartford, is very smart and very clever. I think they are playing a waiting game because they know that escape is virtually impossible. Even if they were to breach the wires, where would they go? This is an island and a host of gringos would stick out like a nun in a whorehouse."
"I am well aware that Cuba is an island," Ortega said. "But are they getting their hands on weapons? Are they in radio contact with the United States? What?"
Cordero sighed. "A few of the uniformed rabble now under my command have managed to lose some weapons and have been severely punished, but I have no idea if they were lost, stolen by Americans for use against us, or stolen by thieves wanting to make some money. As to the yanquis having a radio in camp, we have not picked up any transmissions coming from the camp. We assume they have transistor radio receivers and are following news broadcasts and may well be receiving coded messages."
"Of course."
"And even if we do detect a broadcast, what should we do? I'm certain that any short-wave radio will be small and easy to hide on almost an instant's notice. Just like transistor radios, we would never find them."
"Have you any spies in their camp?" Ortega asked and immediately realized how foolish the question was. American marines and sailors were running the camp under their own officers. They knew each other, which meant spies were out of the question, and the Americans hadn't been in prison long enough to seduce any of them as traitors.
"Forget I asked." Ortega sighed. "Continue to do the best you can. Now, what about those men you found?"
Cordero felt good about this. His patrols had found two seriously wounded sailors hiding just outside the base and had also located a number of bodies in the rubble, largely from the stench.
"The two sailors are recovering and will be sent to Havana so the Swiss can send them to Miami. We have notified the Swiss of the identities of the bodies and they will forward the information to the Americans. We have also located places where the Americans may have buried their dead. We are in no hurry to disinter them, although I will if you so desire it."
Ortega nodded. "I do, but send some prisoners from the camp to do it. They will treat their own dead with more respect. Such considerations will play well with other Latin nations and at the United Nations. Now, what have you heard about those Canadian missionaries? Fidel is concerned that they haven't been located, despite the fact that they managed to telephone their office in Toronto."
Cordero looked at him in disbelief. "Beloved cousin and general, do you and Comrade Fidel truly believe that they are missionaries? Or that they phoned Toronto? I got a report on the names used and compared them with the American roster and they are all on it. Missionaries my ass, my dear cousin, they are Americans marines calling for help, and the woman who made the call is a civilian employee who was among the missing."
Ortega flushed angrily. How could he and his superiors in Havana have been so stupid? Because they were busy gloating over their success and preparing for the American response, that's how.
"You will try to find them, won't you?" Ortega said sweetly.
"Of course. But not to the extent that it detracts from my main goals, which are the control of the prisoners and the defense of Santiago. A half a dozen lost and lonely marines are not a threat to Cuba. By the way, Comrade Fidel's latest speech alluded to secret weapons that will drive away the Americans. What can you say about that?"
Ortega forced himself to smile. "If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret would it? What is the saying — three can keep a secret if two are dead?"
But Ortega had heard the speech and picked up other thinly veiled references from Raul and Che, in addition to what was mentioned in Fidel's speech. What the devil were those people in Havana up to this time?
Andrei Sokolov, once honored to be a major in the rocket forces of the army of the Soviet Union, and an officer in the proud Rocket Regiment stationed near Havana, paced and waited for his contact to show himself.
He had flown from Havana to Mexico City in a plane filled with American wounded. He had been horrified by the extent of the damage to their bodies. Some were blind and others were amputees. The ones who were conscious had stared at him curiously but made no attempt at conversation. Why should they? He was dressed as a civilian. Sokolov had been impressed by their inner strength and stoicism.
Once in Mexico, he had changed into a different set of civilian clothes, bought a cheap old car and driven north. At the border between Mexico and Brownsville, Texas, he'd seen the increased surveillance brought about by the conflict between the U.S. and Cuba and been momentarily stalled. He couldn't pass himself as an American and didn't want to tell everything to an American border guard who might, after all, be as corrupt and inept as they were in the Soviet empire. He heard the Americans weren't corrupt, but who knew for certain?
But that was the bad news. He drove a few dozen miles west, parked the car, which was rattling and dying, and simply walked across the Rio Grande with his shoes tied together and looped over his neck. He barely got his feet wet. Americans derisively called Mexicans who crossed illegally “wetbacks,” but no one was getting his back wet that day.
He’d put on his shoes and walked into Brownsville trying to exude a sense of confidence he didn't feel. There had to be eyes staring at him. It couldn't be that easy to cross into the United States, could it? And where were the secret police? He’d been trained to spot them, but could see nothing to indicate their presence. Wasn't anybody watching the people? What kind of country was this? He then thought that maybe the Americans were really good at covert surveillance and that did not make him feel better. From Brownsville he took a Greyhound Bus to New Orleans and a plane to Washington National Airport where he'd looked out the window and seen the U.S. Capitol and White House displayed below him as the plane banked to land. He'd again been amazed at just how easy it had been to get into the United States, and how vulnerable that country was to determined invaders. No commercial plane would be allowed anywhere close to the Kremlin. He shuddered. This was now his new country. If they couldn't protect their own borders, just how the devil were they going to protect him from the clutches of the KGB? He wondered if he should have bluffed out General Pliyev and stayed in Cuba, but quickly decided that was not a rational option. For better or worse, he was in the United States and was going to remain there for a very long time, assuming, of course, that he wasn’t killed.
Sokolov looked around, fearfully expecting to see, not his American contact, but Georgi Golikov, the chief of Soviet intelligence in Washington, D.C. He didn't know if Golikov was KGB or not and didn't care. He'd met Golikov once and thought that Golikov would be able to identify him. Sokolov presumed that he was now a very wanted man with a price on his head and that his photo was on display at every Soviet embassy and
legation in the world, and most particularly those in the United States.
He was alone in a crowd by the Lincoln Memorial and the giant statue seemed to be staring balefully down on him. He slowly realized that several muscular young men in suits had loosely surrounded him. They were observing but making no overt move toward him. Despite the chill in the air, he was sweating. He began to shiver and his hand shook. If they were KGB, would they risk kidnapping him in such a crowd? Why not? They could have a car pull up and push him in it before any of the tourists around him had a chance to even take a picture or even wonder what they'd just seen.
Or would they just take him out right here and now? A casual brush-by and a quick jab with a poison dart and he'd be dead from an apparent heart attack in a few seconds. The KGB was good at those things. He began to whimper and a couple of people turned and looked at him. He wondered just why the hell he'd ever given that information to the Americans, and he hated General Pliyev for playing him like the fool he now knew he was.
Someone was staring at him from across the plaza. Was that Golikov? Mother of God, it was and there were two other Russians with him. Had they recognized him? He was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap that said Washington Senators, whatever they were. He'd just bought it at a souvenir stand. It was on sale because the team apparently no longer existed. It was a lousy disguise but it was all he could come up with on extremely short notice. Maybe he should have shoved cotton in his cheeks and a pillow under his shirt.
"Andrei?"
Sokolov nearly jumped out of his skin. The face was familiar and the smile seemed genuine. "Ulrich," Sokolov said, relief sweeping over him, "my good friend, Ulrich Fullmer. It is so good to see you."
Kraeger smiled and shook the Russian's hand. Sokolov pumped furiously and didn't seem to want to let go. The three other CIA agents moved closer in a protective cluster. Fifty yards away, Golikov shrugged and walked in the other direction.
"Good to see you, buddy," Kraeger said to Sokolov. "You're phone call was quite a surprise. Of course," he laughed as they steered the nervous Russian towards waiting cars, "I've been getting a lot of unexpected phone calls lately."
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