He reached into a canvas bag hanging from his belt and took out a grenade. He stepped from the shadows and lobbed the grenade into the rear truck. The explosion came like a dull thump, followed by a brilliant flash of flame as the fuel tank burst. The truck seemed to blossom outward, and men were thrown across the dock like fiery bowling pins.
He ran through the dazed and disorganized Russians, leaping over the screaming injured who were rolling around the dock desperately trying to douse their flaming clothing. The next detonations came in rapid succession, echoing across the bay, as he heaved three more grenades under the remaining trucks.
Fresh flame and clouds of smoke billowed above the roofs of the warehouses. The marines frantically abandoned their vehicles and scrambled for their lives out of the holocaust. A few were galvanized into action and began firing into the darkness at anything that vaguely resembled a human form. The ragged fusillade mingled with the sound of shattering glass as the windows of the warehouses were blown away.
Clark's small team of six fighters held their fire. The few shots that came in their direction went over their heads. They waited as Clark mingled in the disorganized melee, unsuspected in his Cuban officer's uniform, cursing in fluent Russian and ordering the marines to regroup and charge up the wharf.
"Form up! Form up!" he shouted excitedly. "They're running away. Move, damn you, before the traitors escape!"
He broke off suddenly as he came face to face with Borchev. The Soviet major's mouth fell open in total incredulity and before he could close it Clark grabbed him by the arm and hurled him over the dock into the water. Fortunately, no one took notice amid the confusion.
"Follow me!" Clark yelled, and began running up the dock where it passed between two warehouses. Individually, and in groups of four or five, the Soviet marines raced after him, crouching and zigzagging in highly trained movements across the wharf, laying down a sheet of fire as they advanced.
They seemed to have overcome the paralyzing shock of surprise and were determined to retaliate against their unseen enemy, never knowing they were escaping from one nightmare and entering another. No one questioned Clark's orders. Without their commander to tell them otherwise, the noncoms exhorted their men to follow the officer in the Cuban uniform who was leading the attack.
When the marines had dodged their way between the warehouses, Clark threw himself flat as though hit. It was the signal for his men to open up. The Soviets were hit from all sides. Many were cut off their feet. They made perfect targets, silhouetted by the blazing pyre of the trucks. Those who survived the scything sweep of death returned the fire. The staccato crash of sound was deafening as shells thudded into wooden walls and human flesh or missed and richocheted, whining into the night.
Clark rolled violently toward the cover of a packing crate, but was struck in the thigh and again by a bullet that passed through both wrists.
Badly battered, but still fighting, the Soviet marines began to pull back. They made a futile attempt to break out of the dock area and reach the safety of a concrete wall running along the main boulevard, but two of Clark's men laid down a hail of fire that stopped them in their tracks.
Clark lay there behind the crate, blood streaming from shattered veins, his life draining away, and he was helpless to stop it. His hands hung like broken tree limbs, and there was no feeling in his fingers. Blackness was already closing in when he dragged himself to the edge of the pier and stared out over the harbor.
The last sight his eyes were to ever see was the outline of the two cargo ships against the lights on the opposite shore. They were swinging clear of the docks and turning toward the harbor entrance.
<<71>>
While the battle was raging on the wharf, the little Pisto took the tow and began pulling the Ozero Zaysarv into the harbor stern first. Struggling mightily, she buried her huge single propeller in the oily water and boiled it into a cauldron of foam.
The 20,000-ton vessel began to move, her formless bulk animated by orange flames as she slipped into open water. Once free of the docks Jack made a wide 180-degree sweep, pivoting the munitions ship until her bow faced the harbor entrance. Then the tow wire was released and winched in.
In the wheelhouse of the Amy Bigalow Pitt gripped the helm and hoped something would give. He tensed, scarcely daring to breathe. The still-fastened bowline came taut and creaked from the tremendous stress placed on it by the backing vessel and stoutly refused to snap. Like a dog straining at a leash, the Amy Bigalow tucked her bow slightly, increasing the tension. The rope held, but the bollard was torn from its dock mountings with a loud crunch of splintered wood.
A tremor ran through the ship and she gradually began to back away into the harbor. Pitt put the wheel over and slowly the bows came around until she had turned broadside to the receding dock. The vibration from the engine smoothed out and soon they were quietly gliding astern with a light wisp of smoke rising from the funnel.
The whole waterfront seemed to be ablaze, the flames from the burning trucks casting an eerie, flickering light inside the wheelhouse. All hands except Manny came up from the engine room and stood by on the bow. Now that he had room to maneuver, Pitt spun the wheel hard to starboard and rang Slow Ahead on the telegraph. Manny answered and the Amy Bigalow lost sternway and began to creep slowly forward.
The stars in the east were beginning to lose their sparkle as the shadowy hull of the Ozero Zaysan drew abeam. Pitt ordered All Stop as the tugboat came about under the bows. The Pisto's crew flung up a light heaving rope that was tied to a graduated series of heavier lines. Pitt watched from the bridge as they were hauled on board. Then the thick tow cable was taken up by a forward winch and made fast.
The same act was repeated on the stern, only this time with the port anchor chain from the dead and drifting Ozero Zaysan. After the chain was winched across, its links were tied to the after bits. The two-way connection was made. The three vessels were now tethered together, with the Amy Bigalow in the middle.
Jack gave a blast on the Pisto's air horn, and the tug began to ease ahead, taking up the slack. Pitt stood on the bridge wing and stared aft. When one of Manny's men signaled that the tow chain on the stern was taut, Pitt gave a slight pull on the steam whistle and swung the telegraph to Full Ahead.
The final step in Pitt's plan had been completed. The oil tanker was left behind, floating nearer the oil storage tanks on the opposite shore of the harbor, but a good mile farther from the more populated center of the city. The other two ships and their deadly cargoes were gathering way in their dash for the open sea, the tugboat adding her power to that of the Amy Bigalow to raise the speed of the marine caravan.
Behind them the great column of smoke and flame spiraled up into the early blue of morning. Clark had bought them enough time for a fighting chance, but he had paid with his life.
Pitt did not look back. His eyes were drawn like a magnet on the beacon from the lighthouse above the gray walls of Morro Castle, that grim fortress guarding the entrance to Havana Harbor. It lay three miles away, but it seemed thirty.
The die was cast. Manny raised power to the other engine and the twin screws thrashed the water. The Amy Bigalow began to pick up speed. Two knots became three. Three became four. She beat toward the channel below the lighthouse like a Clydesdale in a pulling contest.
They were forty minutes away from reaching home free. But the warning was out and the unthinkable was yet to come.
Major Borchev dodged the burning embers that fell and hissed in the water. Floating there under the pilings, he could hear the roar of automatic weapons fire and see the flames leap into the sky. The dirty water between the docks felt tepid and reeked of dead fish and diesel oil. He gagged and vomited up the foul backwash he had swallowed when the strange Cuban colonel shoved him over the side.
He swam for what seemed a mile before he found a ladder and climbed to the top of an abandoned pier. He spat out the disgusting taste and jogged toward the burning convoy.
&nb
sp; Blackened and smoldering bodies littered the dock. The gunfire had stopped after Clark's few surviving men escaped in a small outboard boat. Borchev walked cautiously through the carnage. Except for two wounded men who had taken refuge behind a forklift, the rest were dead. His entire detachment had been wiped out.
Half crazed with anger, Borchev staggered among the victims, searching, until he came upon the body of Clark. He rolled the CIA agent over on his back and looked down into sightless eyes.
"Who are you?" he demanded senselessly. "Who do you work for?"
The answers had died with Clark.
Borchev took the limp body by the belt and dragged it to the edge of the pier. Then he kicked it into the water.
"See how you like it!" he shouted insanely.
Borchev wandered aimlessly amid the massacre for another ten minutes before he regained his balance. He finally realized he had to report to Velikov. The only transmitter had melted inside the lead truck, and he began to run around the waterfront, feverishly hunting for a telephone.
He found a sign on a building identifying a dockworkers' recreation room. He lunged at the door and smashed it open with his shoulder. He fumbled along the wall, found the light switch, and turned it on. The room was furnished with old stained sofas. There were checkerboards and dominoes and a small refrigerator. Posters of Castro, Che Guevara haughtily smoking a cigar, and a somber Lenin stared down from one wall.
Borchev entered the office of a supervisor and snatched up the telephone on a desk. He dialed several times without getting through. Finally he raised the operator, cursing the retarded efficiency of the Cuban phone system.
The clouds above the eastern hills were beginning to glow orange and the sirens of the city's fire squads were converging on the waterfront when he was finally connected to the Soviet Embassy.
Captain Manuel Pinon stood on the bridge wing of the Russian-built Riga-class patrol frigate and steadied his binoculars. He had been awakened by his first officer soon after the fighting and conflagration had broken out in the commercial dock area. He could see little through the binoculars because his vessel was moored to the naval dock around a point just below the channel and his vision was blocked by buildings.
"Shouldn't we investigate?" asked his first officer.
"The police and fire crews can handle it," answered Pinon.
"Sounds like gunshots."
"Probably a warehouse blaze that's ignited military supplies. Better we stay clear of the fireboats." He handed the glasses to the first officer. "Keep a watch on it. I'm going back to bed."
Pinon was just about to enter his stateroom when his first officer came running up the passageway.
"Sir, you'd better return to the bridge. Two ships are attempting to leave the harbor."
"Without clearance?"
"Yes, sir."
"Could be they're moving to a new mooring."
The first officer shook his head. "Their heading is taking them into the main channel."
Pinon groaned. "The gods are against me getting any sleep."
The first officer grinned sardonically. "A good Communist does not believe in gods."
"Tell that to my white-haired mother."
On the bridge wing once again, Pinon yawned and peered through the early-morning haze. Two ships under tow were about to enter the Entrada Channel for open seas.
"What in hell--" Pinon refocused the glasses. "Not a flag, not a navigation light showing, no lookouts on the bridge=
"Nor do they respond to our radio signals requesting their intent. Almost looks like they're trying to sneak out."
"Counterrevolutionary scum trying to reach the United States," Pinon growled. "Yes, that must be it. Can't be anything else."
"Shall I give the order to cast off and get under way?"
"Yes, immediately. We'll come around across their bows and block their way."
Even as he spoke, the first officer's hand was reaching for the siren switch that whooped the crew to action stations.
Ten minutes later the thirty-year-old ship, retired by the Russian Navy after it had been replaced by a newer, modified class of frigate, drifted broadside across the channel. Her four-inch guns turned and aimed almost point-blank at the rapidly approaching phantom vessels.
Pitt gazed at the blinking signal lamp on the frigate. He was tempted to turn on the radio, but it was agreed upon from the beginning that the convoy would remain silent in case an alert port authority official or security post receiver happened to tune in on the same frequency. Pitt's international Morse code was rusty, but he deciphered the message as "Stop immediately and identify."
He kept a sharp eye on the Pisto. He was aware that any sudden evasive move would have to originate with Jack. Pitt called down to the engine room and alerted Manny to the frigate blocking their course, but the brass telegraph pointers remained locked on Full Ahead.
They were so close now he could see the Cuban naval ensign standing stiffly in the offshore breeze. The vanes on the signal lamp flipped up and down again. "Stop immediately or we will open fire."
Two men appeared on the stern of the Pisto and frantically began reeling out more cable. At the same time the tug lost way, made a sharp turn to starboard, and heaved to. Then Jack stepped out of the wheelhouse and hailed the frigate through a bullhorn.
"Give way, you sea cow's ass. Can't you see I have a tow?"
Pinon ignored the insult. He expected no less from a tug captain. "Your movement is unauthorized. I am sending over a boarding party."
"I'll be damned if I let any candy-ass Navy boy step foot on my ship."
"You'll be dead if you don't," Pinon replied in good humor. He was uncertain now whether this was a mass escape attempt by dissidents, but the strange actions of the tug and unlit ships required an investigation.
He leaned over the bridge railing and ordered the ship's motor cutter and boarding crew to lower away. When he turned back to face the unidentified convoy, he froze in horror.
Too late. In the dusky light he had failed to see that the ship behind the tug was not a dead tow. It was under way and boring down on the frigate at a good eight knots. He stared dazedly for several seconds before his reeling mind took hold.
"Full ahead!" he shrieked. "Guns fire!"
His command was followed by a deafening blast as shells streaked across the narrowing gap, tore into the bow and superstructure of the Amy Bigalow, and exploded in a burst of flame and shattered steel. The port side of the wheelhouse seemed to melt away as if ripped open by a junkyard mangling machine. Glass and debris felt like pellets out of a shotgun. Pitt ducked and kept his grip on the wheel with a determination tied to blind stubbornness. He was lucky to emerge with only a few cuts and a bruised thigh.
The second salvo blew away the chart room and sliced the forward mast in two. The top half fell over the side and was dragged for a hundred feet before the cables parted and it floated clear. The funnel was shattered and turned to scrap, and a shell burst inside the starboard anchor locker, scattering a cloud of salt-rusted links like shrapnel.
There would be no third salvo.
Pinon stood absolutely still, hands tightly clenched on the bridge rail. He stared up at the menacing black bows of the Amy Bigalow as they rose ponderously over the frigate, his face white and his eyes sick with a certainty that his ship was about to die.
The frigate's screws beat the water in a frenzy, but they could not push her out of the way soon enough. There was no question of the Amy Bigalow missing and no doubt as to Pitt's intentions. He was compensating and cutting the angle toward the frigate's midsection. Those of the crew who were topside and could see the approaching disaster gazed numb with horror before finally reacting and throwing themselves over the sides.
The Amy Bigalow's sixty-foot-high stem slashed through the frigate just forward of her rear turret, shredding the plates and penetrating the hull for nearly twenty feet. Pinon's ship might have survived the collision and made shore before settling in the
water, but with a terrible screech of grinding steel the bow of the Amy Bigalow rose up from the gaping wound until her barnacled keel was exposed. She hung there for an instant, and then dropped, crushing the frigate in two and pile-driving the stern section out of sight beneath the surface.
Instantly, the sea poured into the amputated stern, sweeping through the twisted bulkheads and flooding the open compartments. As the cataract surged into the doomed frigate's hull she quickly began to settle astern. Her dying agony did not last long. By the time the Ozero Zaysan was towed over the collision site, she was gone, leaving a pitiful few of her crew struggling in the water.
<<72>>
"You walked into a trap?" Velikov's voice came flat and hard over the phone.
Borchev felt uncomfortable. He couldn't very well admit that he was one of the only three survivors out of forty and lacked even a scratch. "An unknown force of at least two hundred Cubans opened fire with heavy equipment before we could evacuate the trucks."
"You certain they were Cubans?"
"Who else could have planned and carried it out? Their commanding officer was wearing a Cuban Army uniform."
"Perez?"
"Can't say. We'll need time to make an identification."
"Might have been a blunder by green troops who opened fire out of stupidity or panic."
"They were far from stupid. I can recognize highly trained combat troops when I see them. They knew we were coming and laid a well prepared ambush."
Velikov's face went completely blank and then quickly reddened. The assault on Cayo Santa Maria passed before his eyes. He could scarcely contain his rage. "What was their objective?"
"A delaying action to take possession of the ships."
Borchev's answer staggered Velikov. He felt as if his body had turned to ice. The questions came spilling out of his mouth. "The Rum and Cola operation ships were seized? Are they still moored to their docks?"
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