Buried deep in the boiling turmoil, he felt strangely detached. It struck him as ludicrous that he was about to drown on a city street. His desire for life still clung tenaciously, but he did not struggle senselessly and waste precious oxygen. He went lax and vainly tried to peer through the froth, his mind somehow working with uncanny clarity. He knew that if the wave swept him against a concrete building the rushing tons of water would mash him into the same consistency as a watermelon dropped from an airplane.
His fear would have been heightened if he had seen the launch smash into the second story of an apartment building that housed Soviet technicians. The impact collapsed the hull as if the planking were no stronger than an eggshell. The four-cylinder diesel engine was tossed through a broken window by the cascade and ended up in a stairwell.
Mercifully, Pitt was swept into a narrow side street like a log through a chute. The flood carried everything before it in a great tumbling mass of wreckage. But even as it curled around the buildings strong enough to withstand the onslaught, the wave was already beginning to die. Within seconds the leading edge would reach its high mark and then recede, the retreating torrent sucking human bodies and loose debris back to the sea.
Pitt began to see stars as his brain starved for oxygen. His senses began to shut down one by one. He felt a jarring blow as his shoulder struck a fixed object. He whipped an arm around it, trying to hang on, but he was thrust forward by the force of the wave. He ran into another flat surface, and this time he reached out and clutched it in a death grip, not recognizing it as a sign over a jeweler's shop.
The thinking, feeling equipment of his body slowed and shut down as if its electrical current had switched off. His head was pounding and blackness was covering the stars bursting behind his eyes. He existed only on instinct, and soon even that would desert him.
The wave had reached its outer limit and began to fall in on itself, rushing back to the sea. It was too late for Pitt, he was slipping away from consciousness. His brain somehow managed to send out one last message. An arm clumsily jammed its way between the sign and its support shaft that protruded from the building, and wedged there.
Then his bursting lungs could take no more, and he began to drown.
The great rumble from the explosions echoed away into the hills and sea. There was no sunlight over the city, no real sunlight. It was hidden by a smoke-blackened pall of incredible density. The whole harbor seemed afire-- the docks, ships, storage tanks, and three square miles of oil-coated water were bristling with orange and blue flame that streaked up into the dark canopy.
The dreadfully wounded city began to shake off the shock and stagger to its feet. Sirens began to match the noisy intensity of the crackling fires. The tidal wave had flowed back into the Gulf of Mexico, dragging a great mass of splintered debris and bodies in its wake.
Survivors began to stumble dazed and injured into the streets, like bewildered sheep, shocked at the enormous devastation around them, wondering what had happened. Some wandered in shock, unfeeling of their wounds. Others stared dumbly at the huge piece of the Amy Bigalow's rudder that had crashed through the bus station and mashed four of the vehicles and several people who were waiting to board.
A piece of the Ozero Zaysan's forward mast was found embedded in the center of Havana Stadium's soccer field. A one-ton winch landed in a wing of University Hospital and squashed the only three beds not occupied in a forty-bed ward. It was to be widely talked about as only one of a hundred miracles that happened that day. A great boon to the Catholic Church and a small setback to Marxism.
Rescue parties began to form as firefighters and police converged on the waterfront. Army units were called out along with the militia. There was panic amid the chaos at first. The military forces turned their backs on rescue work and manned island defenses under the mistaken belief the United States was invading. The injured seemed to be everywhere, some screaming in pain, most hobbling or walking away from the flaming harbor.
The earthshaking quake died with the shock waves. The ceiling of Sloppy Joe's had fallen in, but the walls still stood. The barroom was a shambles. Wooden beams, fallen plaster, overturned furniture, and broken bottles lay scattered under a thick cloud of dust. The swinging door had been ripped from its hinges and hung at a crazy angle over Castro's bodyguards, who lay groaning under a small hill of bricks.
Ira Hagen hoisted himself painfully to his feet and shook his head to clear it from the ringing of the concussion. He wiped his eyes to penetrate the dust cloud and clutched a wall for support. He looked up through the now open ceiling and saw pictures still hanging on the walls of the floor above.
His first thought was of Jessie. She was lying partially under the table that still stood in the center of the room. Her body was crumpled in a curled position. Hagen knelt and gently turned her over.
She lay motionless, appearing lifeless under the coating of white plaster dust, but there was no blood or serious wounds. Her eyes were half open and she groaned. Hagen smiled with relief and removed his coat. He folded and placed it under her head.
She reached up and grasped his wrist more tightly than he believed possible and stared up at him.
"Dirk is dead," she whispered.
"He might have survived," said Hagen softly, but there was no optimism in his tone.
"Dirk is dead," she repeated.
"Don't move," he said. "Just lie easy while I check out the Castros."
Then he rose unsteadily and began searching through the fallen debris. The sound of coughing came from his left and he climbed over the rubble until he bumped into the bar.
Raul Castro was hanging on to the raised edge of the bar with both hands, dazed and in shock, hacking the dust from his throat. Blood was trickling from his nose and a nasty cut on his chin.
Hagen marveled at how close everyone had been sitting before the explosions and how scattered they were now. He uprighted a fallen chair and helped Raul to sit down.
"Are you all right, sir?" Hagen asked, genuinely concerned.
Raul nodded weakly. "I'm all right. Fidel? Where is Fidel?"
"Sit tight. I'll find him."
Hagen moved off through the rubble until he found Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader was on his stomach and twisted sideways, shoulders propped up by one arm. Hagen stared in fascination at the scene on the floor.
Castro's eyes were trained on an upturned face only a foot away. General Velikov was spread-eagled on his back, a large beam crushing his legs. The expression on his face was a mixture of defiance and apprehension. He stared up at Castro through eyes bitter with the taste of defeat.
There was not a flicker of emotion in Castro's expression. The plaster dust made him look as though he were sculpted in marble. The rigidity of the face, masklike, the total concentration, was almost inhuman.
"We live, General," he murmured triumphantly. "We both live."
"Not right," Velikov uttered through clenched teeth. "We should all be dead."
"Dirk Pitt and the others somehow got the ships through your naval units and out to sea," explained Hagen. "The destructive force of the explosion was only one-tenth of what it might have been if they remained in the harbor."
"You have failed," said Castro. "Cuba remains Cuba."
"So near and yet--" Velikov shook his head resignedly. "And now for the revenge you vowed to take on me."
"You will die for every one of my countrymen you murdered," Castro promised, in a voice as cold as an open grave. "If it takes a thousand deaths or a hundred thousand. You will suffer them all."
Velikov grinned crookedly. He seemed to have no nerves at all. "Another man, another time, and you will surely be killed, Fidel. I know. I helped create five alternative plans in case this one failed."
<6>EUREKA! THE LA DORADA
November 8, 1989
Washington, D.C.
<<75>>
Martin Brogan walked into the early-morning cabinet meeting late. The President and the men seated around t
he large kidney-shaped table looked up expectantly.
"The ships were detonated four hours ahead of schedule," he informed them while still standing.
His announcement was greeted with solemn silence. Every man at the table had been told of the unbelievable plan by the Soviets to remove Castro, and the news struck them more as an inevitable tragedy than a shocking catastrophe.
"What are the latest reports on loss of life?" asked Douglas Oates.
"Too early to tell," replied Brogan. "The whole harbor area is in flames. The deaths could conceivably total in the thousands. The devastation, however, is not nearly as severe as we first projected. It appears our agents in Havana seized two of the ships and sailed them out of the harbor before they exploded."
As they listened in contemplative quiet, Brogan read from the initial reports sent from the Special Interests Section in Havana. He recounted the details of the plan to move the ships and the sketchy details of the actual operation. Before he had finished, one of his aides entered and slipped him an updated report. He scanned it silently and then read the first line.
"Fidel and Raul Castro are alive." He paused to gaze at the President. "Your man, Ira Hagen, says he is in direct contact with the Castros and they have requested any assistance we can offer in the way of disaster relief, including medical personnel and supplies, firefighting equipment, food and clothing, and also morgue and embalming experts."
The President looked at General Clayton Metcalf, chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff. "General?"
"After your call last night, I alerted Air Transport Command. We can begin the airlift as soon as the people and supplies arrive at the airfields and are loaded on board."
"Any approach by American military aircraft had better be coordinated or the Cubans will cut loose with their surface-to-air missiles," pointed out Secretary of Defense Simmons.
"I'll see to it a line of communication is opened with their Foreign Ministry," said Secretary of State Oates.
"Better make it clear to Castro that any relief we send is organized under the umbrella of the Red Cross," added Dan Fawcett. "We don't want to scare him into slamming the door."
"An angle we can't overlook," said the President.
"Almost a crime to take advantage of a terrible disaster," mused Oates. "Still, we can't deny it's a heaven-sent opportunity to cement relations with Cuba and defuse revolutionary fever throughout the Americas."
"I wonder if Castro has ever studied Simon Bolivar?" the President asked no one in particular.
"The Great Liberator of South America is one of Castro's idols," replied Brogan. "Why do you ask?"
"Then perhaps he's finally heeded one of Bolivar's quotations."
"Which quotation is that, Mr. President?"
The President looked from face to face around the table before answering. " " `He who serves a revolution plows the sea.' "
<<76>>
The chaos slowly subsided and the rescue work began as the population of Havana recovered from the shock. Hurricane emergency procedures were put into operation. Army and militia units along with paramedics sifted through the rubble, lifting the bodies of the living into ambulances and the dead into trucks.
The Santa Clara convent, dating from 1643, was taken over as a temporary hospital and quickly filled. The wards and corridors of University Hospital soon overflowed. The elegant old Presidential Palace, now the museum of the revolution, was turned into a morgue.
Injured people walked the streets bleeding, staring vacantly or searching desperately for loved ones. A clock on top of a building in Cathedral Square of old Havana sat frozen at 6:21. Some residents who had fled their homes during the havoc began to drift back. Others who had no homes to return to walked through the streets, picking their way around the bodies, carrying small bundles containing salvaged possessions.
Every fire unit for a hundred miles streamed into the city and vainly fought the fires spreading throughout the waterfront. A tank of chlorine gas exploded, adding its poison to the ravages of the blaze. Twice the hundreds of firefighters had to run for cover when a change of wind whipped the blistering heat in their faces.
Even while the rescue operations were being organized, Fidel Castro launched a purge of disloyal government officials and military officers. Raul personally directed the roundup. Most had abandoned the city, having been forewarned of Rum and Cola by Velikov and the KGB. One by one they were arrested, each one stunned by the news the Castro brothers were still alive. By the hundreds they were transported under heavy guard to a secret prison compound deep in the mountains, never to be seen again.
At two o'clock in the afternoon the first U.S. Air Force heavy cargo plane landed at Havana's international airport. Soon a constant stream of aircraft were arriving. Fidel Castro was on hand to greet the volunteer doctors and nurses. He personally saw to it that Cuban relief committees stood by to receive the supplies and cooperate with the incoming Americans.
By early evening, Coast Guard and firefighting vessels from the port of Miami began to stream over the smoke-filled horizon. Bulldozers, heavy equipment, and oil-fire experts from Texas moved into the fiery wreckage along the harbor and wasted no time in attacking the flames.
Despite past political differences the imagination of the United States and Cuba seemed to leap to the occasion and everyone worked together closely on the specific emergencies to be met.
Admiral Sandecker and Al Giordino stepped off a NUMA jet late in the afternoon. They hitched a ride on a truck, loaded with bed linen and military cots, as far as a distribution depot, where Giordino hot-wired and borrowed an abandoned Fiat.
The false sunset from the flames tinted their faces red through the windshield as they gazed incredulously at the gigantic smoke cloud and great sea of fire.
After nearly an hour of winding their way through the city and being directed by police through complicated detours to avoid streets choked with debris and rescue vehicles, they finally reached the Swiss Embassy.
"We have our job cut out," said Sandecker, staring at the ruined buildings and the wreckage littering the wide boulevard of the Malecon.
Giordino nodded sadly. "He may never be found."
"Still, we owe it to him to try."
"Yes," Giordino said heavily. "We owe Dirk that."
They turned and walked through the battered entrance of the embassy and were directed to the communications room of the Special Interests Section.
The room was jammed with news correspondents, waiting their turn to transmit reports of the disaster. Sandecker shouldered his way through the throng and found a heavyset man dictating to a radio operator. When the man finished, Sandecker tapped him on the arm.
"You Ira Hagen?"
"Yes, I'm Hagen." The hoarse voice matched the tired lines in the face.
"Thought so," said Sandecker. "The President described you in some detail."
Hagen patted his rotund stomach and forced a smile. "I'm not hard to pick out in a crowd." Then he paused and looked at Sandecker strangely. "You say the President--"
"I met with him four hours ago in the White House. My name is James Sandecker and this is Al Giordino. We're with NUMA."
"Yes, Admiral, I know the name. What can I do for you?"
"We're friends of Dirk Pitt and Jessie LeBaron."
Hagen closed his eyes for a second and then gazed at Sandecker steadily. "Mrs. LeBaron is one hell of a woman. Except for a few small cuts and bruises, she came out of the explosion in good shape. She's helping out at an emergency hospital for children in the old cathedral. But if you're looking for Pitt, I'm afraid you're wasting your time. He was at the helm of the Amy Bigalow when she blew up."
Giordino suddenly felt sick at heart. "There's no chance he might have escaped?"
"Of the men who fought off the Russians on the docks while the ships slipped out to sea, only two survived. Every one of the crew on board the ships and tugboat is missing. There's little hope any of them made it clear in time. And if the e
xplosions didn't kill them, they surely must have drowned in the tidal wave."
Giordino clenched his fists in frustration. He turned and faced away so the others couldn't see the tears rimming his eyes.
Sandecker shook his head in sorrow. "We'd like to make a search of the hospitals."
"I hate to sound heartless, Admiral, but you'd do better to look in the morgues."
"We'll do both."
"I'll ask the Swiss to arrange a diplomatic pass so you can move freely about the city."
"Thank you."
Hagen looked at both men, his eyes filled with compassion. "If it's any consolation, your friend Pitt was responsible for saving a hundred thousand lives."
Sandecker stared back, a sudden proud look on his face. "And if you knew Dirk Pitt, Mr. Hagen, you'd have expected no less."
<<77>>
With not much optimism, Sandecker and Giordino began looking for Pitt in the hospitals. They stepped over countless wounded who lay in rows on the floors as nurses administered what aid they could and teams of exhausted doctors labored in the operating rooms. Numerous times they stopped and helped move stretcher cases before continuing the hunt.
They could not find Pitt among the living.
Next they searched through the makeshift morgues, some with trucks waiting in front containing bodies stacked four and five deep. A small army of embalmers worked feverishly to prevent the spread of disease. The dead lay everywhere like cordwood, their faces bare, staring vacantly at the ceilings. Many were too burned and mutilated to identify and were later buried in a mass ceremony in the Colon cemetery.
One harried morgue attendant showed them the remains of a man reported to have been washed in from the sea. It was not Pitt, and they failed to identify Manny because they did not know him.
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