Tracie fell silent as her mind churned through the possibilities this information represented. It was of course possible Polanco was lying through his teeth, that either he or his people had in fact been responsible for this bombing, for reasons unknown to her. But she doubted it. His anger was too real, too unrehearsed, too…raw…for a man putting on a front.
Again she thought back to the ease with which Juan Gonzalez’s Atlantic Ocean chauffeurs had found and navigated into the tiny inlet from which she had come ashore. She recalled the flicker she thought she had seen in Gonzalez’s eyes when he had first laid eyes on Tracie’s rendition of the symbol. The Omega symbol.
Had the flicker of recognition represented something other than what she had been assuming? Had it represented his recognition of his own organization’s symbol?
If General Polanco was telling the truth—and Tracie had to admit she was starting to think he was—then it probably had. That symbol might well belong to Gonzalez or, at the very least, to some of his people.
And if that was the case, it changed everything.
Polanco seemed to interpret her silence as disbelief of his statement. “Would you like to see more of the destruction, little niña? I can drive around Havana all night.”
Tracie considered the general’s words. On balance, she believed them. There were no rabid paramilitary followers of General Antonio Polanco. Or if they existed, they weren’t the group who had snuck into the United States and murdered the entire management structure of one relatively small company with ties to the defense community.
There was no reason to see more of the devastation Polanco claimed had occurred throughout Cuba’s capitol city.
And there was another factor to consider. She was running out of time. She checked her watch and saw that it was already nearly one-thirty a.m. Gonzalez’s men had warned her that they would leave Cuba no later than three o’clock, whether she had returned or not.
It was time to get moving.
She had to get back to the States and regroup.
She opened her mouth to tell Polanco to fire up his classic car and then she froze, watching in shock as a vehicle marked “Policia” eased into the plaza and stopped. Its headlamps bathed the Mark II in weak yellow illumination.
Polanco turned to Tracie and smiled, completely at ease. “This is a problem, sí?”
The adrenaline kicked in and she considered potential escape scenarios as the police cruiser sat unmoving across the plaza. Polanco was a powerful man in his country. His car was unique, and must be instantly recognizable to the authorities. Same with his fondness for local prostitutes. Perhaps the officer would simply turn around and drive away.
But somehow she knew he wasn’t going to simply turn around and drive away, and she was right. After another thirty seconds or so, during which time Tracie held her breath and felt her mouth going dry, the officer inside the vehicle flipped on a bubble light mounted atop the small car that made the cruiser look like something out of an old 1940s Hollywood movie.
Hookers, she thought again. They’ll know he loves hookers.
She slid across the passenger seat and leaned into the big bear of a man, jamming her Beretta into his ribs, hard. “I’m a prostitute and we’re out for a moonlight drive,” she said quietly, her voice hard and cold. “Get rid of this man right now or you’re going to die in this fancy car of yours. They can bury you in it as far as I’m concerned.”
Polanco tensed but didn’t have time to answer as the police car pulled up next to the Mark II. The cruiser had a hand-controlled spotlight mounted on the door, and the officer trained it straight at the Lincoln’s driver’s side window.
The interior of the general’s car was lit up like midday, and Tracie hoped the officer couldn’t see her outfit past Polanco’s bulk. She wasn’t dressed much like a hooker and was still grimy and dirty from her fight with the general over her gun. There was nothing she could do about any of that now; she was committed.
“Get that damned light out of my eyes!” Polanco demanded gruffly in Spanish, and the officer immediately extinguished it.
That’s a good start, Tracie thought, hoping the general wouldn’t try to alert the officer to his predicament. Thanks to her background in linguistics, she could easily follow everything that was being said, but Polanco would have no way of knowing that she could understand him.
“General,” the officer said warily. The young man obviously recognized Polanco and was just as obviously intimidated by him.
“What is it?” Polanco said gruffly. He didn’t react at all as Tracie jammed her gun even harder into his side.
“Uh…is everything…all right?”
“Yes, yes, everything is fine,” Polanco said. “I am simply enjoying this beautiful evening with my…date.” The general had thrown his right arm over Tracie’s shoulder and now she felt his hand pull away as he indicated her to the officer. He let his hand drop and she felt it linger on her breast. She cleared her throat quietly and the hand disappeared.
The young policeman bent down and peered more closely through Polanco’s half-open window. Tracie nuzzled her face into the general’s neck, pretending to kiss him but trying not to gag from the smell of cigars and stale sweat. She prayed the officer didn’t lean far enough into the car to see her gun.
The cop focused on the bandage wrapped around Polanco’s head and said, “What happened to you?”
“Rough sex.” Tracie could hear the note of amusement in the general’s voice, despite the tension of the moment. He’s enjoying this, she thought, almost shaking her head at the thought but stopping herself in time.
“Sex.”
“That’s right.”
“And then you came…here…with your date?”
An awkward silence followed, broken when an exasperated Polanco finally said, “Yes, Officer, I came here. Is there some kind of problem I should know about?”
“Uh…no, sir.”
“What was your name again?”
“Uh…Cortez, sir.”
“Yes, Officer Cortez. I brought my date here. Is that all right with you, Officer Cortez?”
“Of course, sir, of course. I, uh, I just wanted to make sure…uh…”
“That will be all, Officer Cortez. Thank you for your sharp eyes and your fine police work. I will be sure to phone your precinct captain tomorrow and tell him what an outstanding job you are doing keeping our city safe.”
“Thank you, General Polanco, thank you very much.” Tracie could hear the pleasure in the receding voice as Officer Cortez climbed into his cruiser and slammed the door. A moment later the blue bubble light on top of the car stopped spinning, and a moment after that, the policeman was gone and they were once again alone but for the vagrant drinking on the steps of the building across the plaza.
Tracie pushed herself away from General Polanco and slid across the car to the passenger side, her heart hammering in her chest.
The older man glared at her. “I got rid of him. What happens now, you are going to shoot me anyway?”
“I’m not going to shoot you unless you give me a reason to,” she said. “Just start up this rust bucket and get back to your house.”
19
Tracie wrapped the duct tape around and around Polanco’s wrists and ankles, taking her time and packing it down hard as she went, immobilizing him in the heaviest-looking chair she could find. It was important to ensure the general would be fully incapacitated for at least the amount of time it would take her to get off the island and safely away.
Polanco huffed in anger. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Do you have any idea how long I am going to be stuck in this chair?”
Tracie scoffed. “It won’t be long. The minute you don’t show up for a meeting and then don’t answer your phone, you know as well as I do that enough people will swarm this house to take over a small country. Oh, wait,” she added sardonically, “you already did that.”
She finished packing down the tape and then tested
her work by yanking on the general’s hands and feet, one at a time. He shook his head and sighed deeply but said nothing else.
Finally satisfied that he wouldn’t be going anywhere on his own, Tracie turned to leave. Polanco probably had a housekeeper or gardener or personal assistant—perhaps all three and maybe more—who would be arriving at his house first thing in the morning, so she guessed he would spend—at most—five to six hours immobilized before being released.
And given the fate Tracie had been planning for him just a couple of hours ago, he was getting off easy.
She finished by wrapping a strip of tape around Polanco’s head and slapping it over his mouth, hard. “Your mansion is so far from the road that I doubt anyone would hear you screaming, but there’s no reason to take chances, is there?”
She stepped back and pretended to wait for a response. “Nothing to say?”
Polanco glared at her over the duct tape gag and she said, “I didn’t appreciate you feeling me up back in Havana. This is for every girl you’ve taken advantage of, whether she’s a pro or not.” She placed her gun back in its shoulder rig and then wound up and slugged the general in the jaw.
His head snapped back and his eyes glazed over but he didn’t lose consciousness. The anger in his eyes had turned to fury, but Tracie ignored it. She hefted her backpack. “Thanks for an interesting evening,” she said. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”
Then she slipped out the back door and through the slit in Polanco’s screen. She disappeared into the cover of the vegetation and began hiking back toward the secluded little cove and her escape to the U.S.
***
Gonzalez’s man was gone.
So was the rubber boat.
Tracie checked her watch for the third time and it read exactly what it had read each of the previous two: two thirty-five a.m.
She tried to tell herself she was surprised, but couldn’t quite manage it. She had had a bad feeling about the direction this mission was taking almost from the moment she left Noches Habaña, and seeing the unusual symbol splashed across the remains of the bombed-out office building in Havana had only increased her concern.
Gonzalez had promised that his men would wait for her until three am. He vowed they would not stay one minute later, but he’d been very clear that as long as she arrived back in the cove by three, she would be fine.
She had been set up.
And she had fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
Undoubtedly the man piloting the rubber boat had waited just long enough for her to clomp off through the underbrush and get out of earshot before firing up the electric motor and rendezvousing with the guy who had stayed offshore in the Scarab.
By now the two men would be back in Miami, fast asleep in their beds, probably. And Gonzalez—who had either committed the murders at NCC himself or knew who had—was busy congratulating himself on his cleverness in solving the little problem Tracie represented.
She forced herself to focus. Right now she had bigger problems to worry about than Juan Gonzalez.
She was alone in a Communist country, unarmed except for two semiautomatic pistols and a combat knife.
And nobody knew she was here.
20
Tracie moved as fast as she could, slashing through the underbrush along Villa Blanca. If she were to have any chance of escaping Cuba, speed would be essential. Once day broke, it would likely be too late: she would be stuck here with no supplies and no possibility of help.
After recovering from the shock of discovering she was trapped inside Cuba, Tracie had forced herself to slow her racing pulse and think. She had been in bad situations before and knew that succumbing to panic was the quickest and surest route to an early grave.
A few minutes of careful consideration allowed her to formulate the basics of a plan. It was a desperate plan, one likely doomed to failure, but it was better than standing around waiting for Castro’s soldiers to discover her and put a bullet in her head.
And at least she would be doing something. If everything fell into place, there was still the possibility she could survive this fiasco.
At least that was what she told herself.
Once committed to her long-shot plan, Tracie reversed course and returned the way she had come. A few minutes later she reached jungle-like vegetation at the edge of General Antonio Polanco’s property.
Despite the fact that every passing minute brought daybreak closer, she forced herself to slow down and once again observe the home from a distance. It was highly unlikely anyone would have arrived and freed the general in the short time she had been gone, but walking into a trap wouldn’t do anything to help her situation.
Nothing seemed to have changed as she scanned the mansion with the binocs. The property was as still and silent as she had left it, and if Polanco had been discovered, the exact opposite would have been the case. The place would be swarming with police and military.
She zipped the glasses back into her pack and slung it over her shoulder. Then she set out across the open expanse of felt-green lawn, moving directly to the slit she had cut into Polanco’s screened-in room earlier. Now that she had decided upon a course of action, she wasted no time, slipping through the general’s back door and into his home.
He was right where she had left him, bound and gagged, and he glared at her with a hatred that was palpable.
She smiled sweetly. “Hi Honey, I’m home. Did you miss me?”
Polanco responded with words that were, of course, unintelligible thanks to the duct tape gag, but whose meaning was, nonetheless, crystal clear. He didn’t seem to have missed her at all.
“You know,” Tracie said, squatting down next to the general and slicing through the tape on his ankles with her combat knife, “I can’t help but feel we got off to a rocky start. I think we should give this relationship another try and see if we can make it work.”
He glared at her, but some of his fury seemed to have leached away into confusion. It was clear he never expected to see her again, certainly not less than an hour after she had departed, and had no clue where this sudden reappearance might lead.
She freed his ankles and got back to her feet. Stepped back and gazed down at him thoughtfully. “If I release your hands, are you going to remember that I still have a gun and you don’t?” To emphasize her point, she lifted the weapon and displayed it just inches from his face.
His eyes narrowed and his glare returned and Tracie said, “I asked you a question and I want an answer. Now. Nod or shake your head.” Her voice was cold and quiet.
Polanco stared for a moment longer and then nodded his head abruptly, once, with a violence that more than adequately summed up his mood.
“Fine,” Tracie said. “I’ll release you. But if you so much as breathe in a way I find threatening, I’ll splatter your brains all over this beautiful Oriental rug.”
She leaned over and ripped the tape off Polanco’s mouth. A sharp intake of breath was the only indication it had been painful. His gaze never wavered, nor did the hatred burning in his eyes. Then she sliced through the wrist bindings and stepped back quickly, leveling her gun at the general.
“Now what?” he muttered, rubbing the circulation back into his arms. “I thought I was finally rid of you.”
“Now you’re going to help me get back to the United States.”
“Why don’t you go back the way you came?”
“Why don’t you shut your mouth and let me ask the questions?”
The general shook his head in disgust and said, “Would you explain to me why in the world would I help you get back to the U.S.? Why would I help you in any way?”
“Because I still hold the balance of power, remember? I’m telling you, Antonio, you really need to try to keep up. This relationship will never work if you can’t.”
Polanco muttered something under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, just what the hell do you expect me to do?”
She ignored his question and said, “Do you know how to fly that chopper tied down in your backyard?”
“Of course.” The reply was curt, but Tracie could sense the pride in the general’s voice. “It can get me from here to the Presidential Palace—or to any location in Cuba—in a very short time. I can—”
Polanco stopped short and stared at Tracie in disbelief.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You do not think I’m going to—”
“Fly me back to Miami? Of course not.”
Polanco seemed to relax a bit.
“It won’t be necessary to take me all the way to Miami. You can drop me off at Homestead. I can find my way from there, I’m sure.”
21
Polanco muttered steadily under his breath as he moved around the chopper, disconnecting lines and prepping the craft for departure with an easy familiarity that soothed Tracie’s raw nerves, at least slightly. It was obvious he hadn’t been lying when he said he knew how to fly the bird.
Either that or he was full of shit and one of the best liars she had ever seen.
She followed the angry general as he performed his preflight duties, staying well beyond arm’s reach but close enough so he wouldn’t be tempted to forget her previous threat about putting a bullet in his head.
The chopper was secured to the concrete landing pad by four guide wires, each clipped to a bolt sunk into one corner of the pad and then connected to the landing skids, one at the front of each skid and one at the rear.
“What’s the range of this thing?” Tracie asked doubtfully. She had ridden in helicopters before and had never liked it. Airplanes were one thing; they were big and solid and felt like they could at least take on foul weather or high winds and have a chance of surviving. But helicopters struck her as tiny and insubstantial, as if the barest puff of a breeze would carry them away.
Or worse, break them apart and send the occupants tumbling thousands of feet to a gruesome death.
Polanco muttered an answer and Tracie said, “Speak up!”
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 61