Castro's Bomb (4 page)

"Hell, sir, Hannigan's got family in Florida and I had no plans.
 
Hannigan's also my friend, so it's not that big a deal."

Hartford smiled.
 
"That and the fact that you're getting out in a few weeks and you're saving your leave time so you'll have more money once the Corps sets you free had nothing to do with it, right?"

Ross smiled back.
 
Of course the extra money had been a consideration.
 
"Nothing whatsoever, sir," he said with a smile.

Hartford sighed deeply.
 
"If you weren't so totally un-promotable I would try to convince you to re-enlist and help the corps save the free world.
 
As it is, it's probably better for all of us that you revert to being a lowly civilian.
 
You're a pretty decent guy, Ross, but that will never cut it in the Corps, especially as an officer.
 
They need nasty obnoxious hard-asses like me, not nice-guy accountants like you."

Ross reluctantly agreed.
 
Even if he was allowed to re-enlist, he'd probably never make it higher than captain, which meant a career as a marine was out of the question.
 
At one point an ROTC commission in the Marine Corps had seemed like a splendid idea and he looked good in the dress uniform.
 
And it did help pay the bills, which were a major issue since his parents had him and his two older sisters to care for.
 

That had been a couple of years ago and he'd early on decided that he didn't want the Marine Corps as a career.
 
Nor did the Corps want him, and with some justification.
 
He was an okay officer, but not a great one.
 
Not that he regretted anything, far from it.
 
He had learned much about himself and would cherish the experience and never forget the camaraderie.
 

He'd been assigned to Guantanamo about a year ago, had lived through the fears of the recently contained Cuban Missile Crisis, spending much of that time in a newly constructed bunker with his M1 carbine and wondering if he was going to live through the coming few days that might end in nuclear holocaust.
 
He had survived, of course, and now was playing out the dwindling number of days until he was discharged.
 
His bachelor quarters were now littered with brochures and applications to law schools, and he'd pretty well settled on either Georgetown or the University of Maryland.
 
Georgetown was his first choice.
 
With an uncle who was chief of staff to a United States Senator, he was pretty certain he'd be able to get the recommendations needed to get in.

"You know why you never made first lieutenant, don't you?" Hartford asked.

"Yes sir.
 
It's because I called Captain Martin an asshole."

"Partly.
 
Let's face it, Ross, Martin is an asshole, was an asshole, and will forever be an asshole.
 
But you were an equal asshole for calling him that in front of several other people.
 
If it had been just the two of you, nobody would have said anything.
 
He would have been pissed and probably called you a bunch of snotty names, too, but that would have been it, with all insults being totally deniable comments between angry adults who were acting like little kids.
 
But others heard you and, worse, they laughed because they agreed with your evaluation of the asshole.
 
So Martin the asshole had to do something about it.
 
Thus the reprimand in your file that says you were disrespectful and insubordinate, and thus you're not getting promoted or invited back to play Marine Corps games even if you wanted to."

The story was true and Ross had a hard time regretting it, just like he did not regret his time in the Corps.
 
Even though he had been a mediocre officer at best, the experience had made him grow and develop as a man, all of which would help him when he went on to law school.
 
A lawyer with an undergraduate accounting degree and a background as an officer in the Marine Corps might just make his future career as a civilian look good, and Captain Martin would still be an asshole.
 
Rumor had it Martin was un-promotable, too.

Nor did Ross particularly look the part of a warrior.
 
He was just under six feet and lean, weighing in at one-sixty after a big meal, had short brown hair, and, worse, needed glasses in order to read small print.
 
They made him look professorial and ‘Prof' was one of his cleaner nicknames and one he found he really didn't mind.
 
It was a hell of a lot better than Andy, which, along with Amos and Andy, always made him think of someone wearing overalls and standing in a cornfield.
 
Still, he was in excellent shape, exercised almost daily, and worked with weights even though nothing ever seemed to show.
 
He was wiry, not muscular. He was also an excellent shot, but so too were most Marines.

Hartford continued.
 
"You know you'll be commanding Hannigan's men, don't you, or at least those who didn't trade or sell their duty.
 
Hey, Hannigan's not paying you to do this, is he?"

Ross laughed and shook his head.
 
"Major, I'm not quite that hard up for money."

"Didn't think you were and I wouldn't hold it against it if you did."
 

A lot of servicemen bought, sold and traded duty, and, as long as a qualified body showed up to work, nobody much cared.

Hartford turned serious.
 
"Look, Andrew, even though this latest crisis is over, or appears to be over, don't take things for granted when you're out there watching the commies.
 
Yes, Kennedy and Khrushchev have agreed to play nice and share this Cuban sandbox, but that doesn't mean that Castro won't do anything crazy, because we all know he is crazy.
 
Frankly, I'm concerned that we've scaled down our level of alertness to almost nothing, but, hell, I'm just a supply officer.
 
What do I know getting ready for a war people say will never happen?"

Ross knew enough not to comment.
 
The major's bitterness at being marginalized into a supply position was understandable.
 
Still, he understood Hartford's concern.
 
He wondered if either Colonel Killen, who commanded the Marine Corps Barracks, or Rear Admiral O'Donnell, who commanded the base at Guantanamo, commonly referred to as Gitmo, had concerns either.
 
If they did, Ross thought they would keep them to themselves and not share them with Hartford or a lowly second lieutenant.

Besides, it was Christmas, 1962, and he would be a civilian in three short weeks.
 
He hadn't dated in months.
 
He once had a girlfriend back home, but that relationship just simply faded away due to a mutual lack of interest as he went on active duty and she went on to a career in advertising in Chicago.
 
Time to get started on a new career and maybe meet a girl who liked skinny guys called Prof.
 
Or maybe the new girl would be the lovely young thing that Mrs. Desmond thought she knew and who Andrew desperately wanted to meet?

General Juan Ortega lay on his belly in the scrub grass and looked through his German binoculars and down at the hated American base that squatted obscenely on sacred Cuban soil.
 
The sun was unusually hot for December, and he was sweating profusely.
 
He was beginning to feel older than his fifty years.
 
He was a little overweight and out of shape for this type of endeavor and had no one but himself to blame for that situation.
 
Too much good food from his wife, Maria, and too much good drink with his fellow officers, he admitted with only mild regrets.
 
And yes, he could and did have others watching the Americans, but this was something he wanted to do for himself.
 
It was his duty and he took his duty very seriously.
 

The gringos had stolen the magnificent Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1898 under the guise of helping the native Cubans liberate Cuba from the Spanish.
 
The Spanish had been gone now for more than half a century.
 
So why hadn't the Americans returned the bay to Cuba?
 
Instead, they had forced the allegedly independent infant republic they'd created to deed over the bay to the United States as a permanent naval base.
 
Yes, he knew the deed called for Cuba to take over the base at some time in the future, but he didn't believe for a moment that the Americans would ever depart voluntarily.
 
They would have to be expelled forcibly, purged and bloodied.

And that was what he was going to do.
 
Blood would be shed, and people would die and that would be necessary.
 
Regrettable, but necessary, and Cuba would emerge triumphant and proud.

Ortega squinted through the binoculars and could see little or nothing unusual the American presence and that was good.
 
Marines and sailors were going about their business, just like they had every other time he'd spied on them.
 
There was no indication of anything unusual going on, and this meant the Americans suspected nothing.

Better and better.

Ever since Fidel Castro had taken over Cuba in 1959 and broken with the Americans, there had been Cuban military forces around what the Yankees called Gitmo.
 
He hated the term.
 
The proper name was Guantanamo, and it was, or should be, part of the province of Guantanamo on the eastern tip of the long, thin island of Cuba.
 
Gitmo.
 
It was an insult to every Cuban, like calling a dark skinned Cuban a nigger.
 
He almost laughed.
 
So many Cubans, like him, had very dark skins.

But it wouldn't be called Gitmo very much longer.
 
The gradual buildup of men and equipment had gone unnoticed by the arrogant and now complaisant Yanquis.
 

Ever since the revolution that had ousted the previous regime of the decadent dictator Fulgensio Batista and his corrupt cronies, and the American criminal enterprises, there had been a Cuban military presence around the American base.
 
During the crisis two months ago, the Cuban forces had been built up, but not much.
 
Now it was different.
 
Very different.

Cathy Malone finished her morning run, thankful that the weather wasn't terribly oppressive.
 
It wasn't the heat, people said, it was the humidity.
 
Bull.
 
It was both of them.

She had run her normal five miles and endured the usual stares and occasional whistles from what she thought were really hard up sailors and marines at Gitmo.
 
Although there were several hundred women on the base, most of them were wives, frequently officer's wives, and very much untouchable.
 
They almost never got whistled at, poor things, no matter how cute they were, lest an officer husband or father get angry at insolent enlisted men.
 
The rest were civilian workers like her, many of whom were older and married.
 
She was one of the few who were both civilian and single, as well as reasonably attractive.
 
Thus, those who knew who she was felt free to whistle at her.
 
It was innocent fun and she often waved at them, which drew friendly laughs.

The running relaxed her, cleansed her, and she sweated profusely as she cooled down.
 
It reminded her of her days as a cross-country runner in the small Catholic high school she'd attended in Pennsylvania.
 
She'd been a good runner, but not a great one.
 
No Olympics or nationals for her.
 
Nor was she offered an athletic scholarship, because women didn't get them.
 
The nuns at the school had mixed emotions about women in athletics.
 
Some hated her for participating even though the school offered the sport, while others admired her for having what they cloyingly called spunk.
 

She'd had to work to help pay for her tuition and it had taken her more than five years to get her liberal arts degree at the University of Pittsburgh.
 
She would become a high school English and history teacher, not solely because it was one of the few professions open to women, but because she genuinely liked teaching.
 
The barriers to women in business were beginning to come down, but only just beginning.
 
It didn't matter.
 
The world of business didn’t interest her.
 
She would teach because that's what she wanted to do.

Some of the men who had recognized her had waved instead of whistled.
 
They knew her as the young teacher lady who'd been brought in to help enlisted men improve their reading skills so they could be promoted.
 
After only a couple of months, she'd developed a reputation for being sincere, helpful, and successful.
 
It made her feel that her one big adventure before settling down with a real job and real students was worth it.

In a perverse way, she liked the whistles.
 
She almost never got whistled at back home in Pennsylvania.
 
She didn't think she was terribly pretty.
 
Attractive, yes, but pretty?
 
Never.
 

She was about five-four, had short light brown hair, and her figure was slender to the point of being thin and, as her older sister used to joke, everyone wondered when her breasts were going to develop.
 
Cathy was twenty-four.
 
What she had up front was going to be it, she thought ruefully.
 
Her sister had also joked that the real reason behind her going to Gitmo was so she could meet desperate guys who were as horny as Cathy.
 
There were times when she wanted to strangle her sister who, she realized, might have been jealous.
 
Cathy had gone on to college and not gotten knocked up by her high school boyfriend like her sister had, and then gotten married to the jerk at seventeen, and divorced at nineteen.