He picked up the ship's phone and rang the engine room. A full minute went by before Manny answered.
"What in the hell do you want?"
"Just checking in," said Pitt. "Ready when you are."
"You got a long wait, mister."
Before Pitt could reply, Clark stepped into the wheelhouse. "You talking to Manny?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Get him up here, now."
Pitt passed on Clark's brusque command, and received a barrage of four-letter words before ringing off.
Less than a minute later, Manny burst through the door reeking of sweat and oil. "Make it quick," he snapped to Clark. "I got a problem."
"Moe has it even worse."
"I already know. The engines have been shut down."
"Are yours in running shape?"
"Why wouldn't they be?"
"The Soviet crew took sledgehammers to every valve on the Ozero Zaysan," said Clark heavily. "Moe says it would take two weeks to make repairs."
"Jack will have to tow him out to sea with the tug," Pitt said flatly.
Manny spat through the wheelhouse door. "He'll never make it back in time to move the oil tanker. The Russians ain't blind. They'll catch on to the game soon as the sun comes up."
Clark nodded his head in slow understanding. "I fear he's right."
"Where do you stand?" Pitt asked Manny.
"If this tub had diesels, I could start her up in two hours. But she's got steam turbines."
"How much time do you need?"
Manny looked down at the deck, his mind running over the lengthy and complicated procedures. "We're starting with a dead plant. First thing we did was get the emergency diesel generator going and light off the burners in the furnace to heat the fuel oil. The lines have to be drained of condensation, the boilers fired up, and the auxiliaries put on line. Then wait for the steam pressure to rise enough to operate the turbines. We're looking at four hours-- providin' everything goes right."
"Four hours?" Clark felt dazed.
"Then the Any Bigalow can't clear the harbor before daylight," said Pitt.
"That wraps it." There was a tired certainty in Clark's voice.
"No, that doesn't wrap it," said Pitt firmly. "If we get even one ship past the harbor entrance we cut the death toll by a third."
"And we all die," added Clark. "There'll be no escape. Two hours ago I'd have given us a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. Not now, not when your old friend Velikov spots his monstrous plan steaming over the horizon. And lest we forget the Soviet colonel sitting on the bottom of the bay, he'll be missed before long and a regiment will come looking for him."
"And there's that captain of the security guards," said Manny. "He'll wise up damned quick when he catches hell for leaving his duty area without proper orders."
The thump of heavy diesel engines slowly amplified outside and a ship's bell gave off three muted rings.
Pitt peered through the bridge windows. "Jack's coming alongside with the tug."
He turned and faced the lights of the city. They reminded him of a vast jewelry box. He began to think of the multitude of children who went to bed looking forward to the holiday celebrations. He wondered how many of them would never wake up.
"There's still hope," he said at last. Quickly he outlined what he thought would be the best solution for reducing the devastation and saving most of Havana. When he finished, he looked from Manny to Clark. "Well, is it workable?"
"Workable?" Clark was numb. "Myself and three others holding off half the Cuban Army for three hours? It's downright homicidal."
"Manny?"
Manny stared at Pitt, trying to make something of the craggy face that was barely visible from the lights on the wharf. Why would an American throw away his life for people who would shoot him on sight? He knew he'd never find the answer in the darkened wheelhouse of the Amy Bigalow, and he shrugged in slow finality.
"We're wastin' time," he said as he turned and headed back to the ship's engine room.
<<69>>
The long black limousine eased to a quiet stop at the main gate of Castro's hunting lodge in the hills southeast of the city. One of the two flags mounted on the front bumper symbolized the Soviet Union and the other marked the passenger as a high-ranking military officer.
The visitors' house outside the fenced estate was the headquarters for Castro's elite bodyguard force. A man in a tailored uniform but showing no insignia walked slowly up to the car. He looked at the shadowed form of a big Soviet officer sitting in the darkness of the backseat and at the identification that was held out the window.
"Colonel General Kolchak. You do not have to prove yourself to me." He threw a wavelike salute. "Juan Fernandez, chief of Fidel's security."
"Don't you ever sleep?"
"I'm a night owl," said Fernandez. "What brings you here at this ungodly hour?"
"A sudden emergency."
Fernandez waited for further elaboration, but none came. He began to feel uneasy. He knew that only a critical situation could bring the Soviets' highest-ranking military representative out at three-thirty in the morning. He wasn't sure how to deal with it.
"I'm very sorry, sir, but Fidel left strict orders not to be disturbed by anyone."
"I respect President Castro's wishes. However, it's Raul I must speak with. Please tell him I'm here on a matter of extreme urgency that must be dealt with face to face."
Fernandez mulled over the request for a moment and then nodded. "I'll phone up to the lodge and tell his aide you're on your way."
"Thank you."
Fernandez waved to an unseen man in the visitors' house and the electronically operated gate swung open. The limousine drove up a curving road that hugged the hills for about two miles. Finally, it pulled up in front of a large Spanish-style villa that overlooked a panorama of dark hills dotted by distant lights.
The driver's boot crunched on the gravel drive as he stepped around to the passenger's door. He did not open it but stood there for nearly five minutes, casually observing the guards that patrolled the grounds. At last, Raul Castro's chief of staff came yawning through the front door.
"Colonel General, what an unexpected pleasure," he said without enthusiasm. "Please come in. Raul is on his way down."
Without replying, the Soviet officer heaved his bulk from the car and followed the aide over a wide patio and into the foyer of the lodge. He held a handkerchief over his face and snorted into it. His driver came also, keeping a few steps behind. Castro's aide stood aside and gestured toward the trophy room. "Please make yourselves comfortable. I'll order some coffee."
Left alone, the two stood silently with their backs to the open doorway and stared at an army of boar heads mounted on the walls and the dozens of stuffed birds perched around the room.
Raul Castro soon entered in pajamas and silk paisley robe. He halted in midstride as his guests turned and faced him. His brows knitted together in surprise and curiosity.
"Who the devil are you?"
"My name is Ira Hagen, and I bear a most important message from the President of the United States." Hagen paused and nodded at his driver, who doffed her cap, allowing a mass of hair to fall to her shoulders. "May I present Mrs. Jessie LeBaron. She's endured great hardship to deliver a personal reply from the President to your brother regarding his proposed U.S.-Cuban friendship pact."
For a moment the silence in the room was so total that Hagen became conscious of the ticking of an elaborate grandfather clock standing against the far wall. Raul's dark eyes darted from Hagen to Jessie and held.
"Jessie LeBaron is dead," he said in quiet astonishment.
"I survived the crash of the blimp and torture by General Peter Velikov." Her voice was calm and commanding. "We carry documented evidence that he intends to assassinate you and Fidel tomorrow morning during the Education Day celebration."
The directness of the statement, the tone of authority behind it, made an impression on Raul.
; He hesitated thoughtfully. Then he nodded. "I'll wake Fidel and ask him to listen to what you have to say."
Velikov watched as a file cabinet from his office was jostled onto a handcart and taken by elevator down to the fireproof basement of the Soviet Embassy. His second-ranking KGB officer entered the disarranged room, brushed some papers from a chair, and sat down.
"Seems a shame to burn all of this," he said tiredly.
"A new and finer building will rise from the ashes," said Velikov with a cunning smile. "Gift of a grateful Cuban government."
The phone buzzed and Velikov quickly answered. "What is it?"
The voice of his secretary replied. "Major Borchev wishes to talk to you."
"Put him on."
"General?"
"Yes, Borchev, what's your problem?"
"The captain in command of waterfront security has left his post along with his men and returned to their base outside the city."
"They left the ships unguarded?"
"Well. . . not exactly."
"Did they or did they not desert their post?"
"He claims he was relieved by a guard force under the command of a Colonel Ernesto Perez."
"I issued no such order."
"I'm aware of that, General. Because if you had, it would have most certainly come to my attention."
"Who is this Perez and what military unit is he assigned to?"
"My staff has checked Cuban military files. They find no record of him."
"I personally sent Colonel Mikoyan to inspect security measures around the ships. Make contact and ask him what in hell is happening down there."
"I've tried to raise him for the past half hour," said Borchev. "He doesn't respond."
Another line buzzed, and Velikov placed Borchev on hold.
"What is it?" he snapped.
"Juan Fernandez. General, I thought you should know that Colonel General Kolchak just arrived for a meeting with Raul Castro."
"Not possible."
"I checked him through the gate myself"
This new development added fuel to Velikov's confusion. A stunned look gripped his face and he expelled his breath in an audible hiss. He had only four hours' sleep in the last thirty-six and his mind was becoming woolly.
"You there, General?" asked Ferndandez anxiously at the silence.
"Yes, yes. Listen to me, Fernandez. Go to the lodge and find out what Castro and Kolchak are doing. Listen in to their conversation and report back to me in two hours."
He didn't wait for an acknowledgment, but punched into Borchev's line. "Major Borchev, form a detachment and go to the dock area. Lead it yourself. Check out this Perez and his relief force and report back to me as soon as you find out anything."
Then Velikov buzzed his secretary. "Get me Colonel General Kolchak's headquarters."
His deputy straightened in the chair and stared at him curiously. He had never seen Velikov in a state of nervousness before.
"Something wrong?"
"I don't know yet," Velikov muttered.
The familiar voice of Colonel General Kolchak suddenly burst from the other end of the phone line. "Velikov, how are things progressing with the GRU and KGB?"
Velikov stood stunned for several moments before recovering. "Where are you?"
"Where am I?" Kolchak repeated. "Trying to clear classified documents and equipment from my headquarters, the same as you. Where did you think I was?"
"I just received a report you were meeting with Raul Castro at the hunting lodge."
"Sorry, I haven't mastered being in two places at the same time," said Kolchak imperturbably. "Sounds to me your intelligence agents are starting to see ghosts."
"Most strange. The report came from a usually reliable source."
"Is Rum and Cola in any danger?"
"No, it is continuing as planned."
"Good. Then I take it the operation is running smoothly."
"Yes," Velikov lied with a fear tainted by uncertainty, "everything is under control."
<<70>>
The tugboat was called the Pisto after a Spanish dish of stewed red peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes. The name was appropriate, as her sides were streaked red with rust and her brass coated with verdigris. Yet, despite the neglect to her outer structure, the big 3,000-horsepower diesel engine that throbbed in her bowels was as bright and glossy as a polished bronze sculpture.
Hands gripping the big teakwood wheel, Jack stared through the moisture-streaked windows at the gigantic mass looming up in the blackness. She was as cold and dark as the other two carriers of death tied to the docks. No navigation lights indicated her presence in the bay, only the patrol boat that circled her 1,100-foot length and 160-foot beam served as a warning for other craft to stay clear.
Jack eased the Pisto abreast of the Ozero Baykai and cautiously edged toward the aft anchor chain. The patrol boat quickly spotted them and came alongside. Three men rushed from the bridge and manned a rapid-fire gun on the bow. Jack rang the engine room for All Stop, an act that was strictly for show as the tug's bow wave was already dying away to a ripple.
A young lieutenant with a beard leaned out of the wheelhouse of the patrol boat and raised a bullhorn.
"This is a restricted area. You don't belong here. Move clear."
Jack cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "I've lost all power to my generators and my diesel just died on me. Can you give me a tow?"
The lieutenant shook his head in exasperation. "This is a military boat. We do not give tows."
"Can I come aboard and use your radio to call my boss? He'll send another tug to tow us clear."
"What's wrong with your emergency battery power?"
"Worn out." Jack made a gesture of helplessness. "No parts for repair. I'm on the waiting list. You know how it is."
The boats were so close now they were almost touching. The lieutenant laid aside the bullhorn and replied in a rasping voice, "I cannot allow that."
"Then I'll have to anchor right here until morning," Jack replied nastily.
The lieutenant angrily threw up his hands in defeat. "Come aboard and make your call."
Jack dropped down a ladder to the deck and jumped across the four-foot gap between the boats. He looked around him with a slow, salty indifference, carefully noting the relaxed attitude of the three-man gun crew, the mate standing by the helm casually lighting a cigar, the tired look on the lieutenant's face. The only man who was missing, he knew, was the engineer below.
The lieutenant came up to him. "Make it quick. You're interfering with a military operation."
"Forgive me," said Jack slavishly, "but it's not my doing."
He reached forward as if wanting to shake hands and pumped two bullets from a silenced automatic into the lieutenant's heart. Then he calmly shot the helmsman.
The trio around the bow gun crumpled and died under a flight of three precisely aimed arrows, fired by Jack's crew with crossbows. The engineer never felt the bullet that struck him in the temple. He fell over the boat's diesel engine, lifeless hands gripping a rag and a wrench.
Jack and his crewmen carried the bodies below and then swiftly opened all drain plugs and sea cocks. They returned to the tug and paid no more attention to the sinking patrol boat as it drifted away on the tide into the darkness.
There was no gangway down, so a pair of grappling hooks were thrown over the tanker's deck railing. Jack and two others clambered up the sides and then hauled up portable acetylene tanks and a cutting torch.
Forty-five minutes later the anchor chains were cut away and the little Pisto, like an ant trying to move an elephant, buried her heavy rope bow fender against the huge stern of the Ozero Baykai. Inch by inch, almost imperceptibly at first, and then yard by yard the tug began nudging the tanker away from the refinery and toward the middle of the bay.
Pitt observed the slothful movement of the Ozero Baykai through a pair of night glasses. Fortunately the ebb tide was working in their favor, pulling the behemoth fart
her from the core of the city.
He had found a self-contained breathing unit and searched the holds for any sign of a detonating device, but could find nothing. He came to the conclusion it must have been buried somewhere under the ammonium nitrate in one of the middle cargo holds. After nearly two hours, he climbed to the main deck and thankfully breathed in the cool breeze off the sea.
Pitt's watch read 4:30 when the Pisto came about and returned to the docks. She made straight for the munitions ship. Jack backed her in until Moe's men hauled in the tow wire that was unreeled from the great winch on the stern of the tug and made fast to the Ozero Zaysan's aft bollards. The lines were cast off, but just as the Pisto prepared to pull, a military convoy of four trucks came roaring onto the wharf.
Pitt dropped down the gangway and hit the dock at a dead run. He dodged around a loading crane and stopped at the stern line. He heaved the fat, oily rope off the bollard and let it fall in the water. There was no time to cast off the bow line. Heavily armed men were dropping from the trucks and forming into combat teams. He climbed the gangway and engaged the electric winch that lifted it level with the deck to prevent any assault from the wharf.
He snatched up the bridge phone and rang the engine room. "Manny, they're here" was all he said.
"I've got vacuum and enough steam in one boiler to move her."
"Nice work, my friend. You shaved off an hour and a half."
"Then let's haul ass."
Pitt walked over to the ship's telegraph and moved the pointers to Stand By. He threw the helm over so the stern would swing away from the pier first. Then he rang for Dead Slow Astern.
Manny rang back from the engine room and Pitt could feel the engines begin to vibrate beneath his feet.
Clark realized with sudden dismay that his small group of men were greatly outnumbered and any escape route cut off. He also discovered that they were not up against ordinary Cuban soldiers but an elite force of Soviet marines. At best he might gain a few minutes' grace-- enough time for the ships to move clear of the docks.
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