Castro's Bomb (60 page)

Scouts had reported that so far there seemed to be no massing of Cordero's troops in the area.
 
Perhaps the camp wasn’t that important to them.

Marine Captain Tom Keppel looked toward the night darkened city of Santiago and beyond it with his light sensitive high powered Soviet binoculars that were the envy of his fellow POWs.
 
He'd bought them for twenty dollars from a Cuban soldier who'd happily said he'd stolen them from a Russian.
 
Every so often an explosion blinded him and he cursed.
 

"Smoke is coming from the west of Santiago, sir.
 
That makes sense if they don't want to attack the city directly, but it does mean that the navy is farther away from us than I would appreciate.
 
I also don't think there'll be Negro cavalry on white horses showing up anytime soon."

Hartford laughed and concurred.
 
The camp was filled with anxiety.
 
In anticipation of being liberated, all of the men had packed whatever worldly goods they'd either brought with them or bought from compliant Cubans.
 
They were ready to move out on a minute's notice, but to where?
 
If Cuban soldiers showed up and tried to move them, should they fight or accept a move to some other place?
 
Hartford and his wife had been to Havana once and had always wanted to see it again, but not under these circumstances.
 
He’d just gotten a letter from her via the Red Cross in which she’d said she was proud of him and hoped they could talk when he was free.

Keppel had laughingly suggested that whether they fought or not it might depend on just how many Cuban soldiers showed up, since, other than their guards, Cuban soldiers seemed in short supply.
 
A handful of guards were in their towers, but the remainder remained in their barracks, sullen, fearful, and angry.
 

All of the POWs' weapons and ammunition had been distributed.
 
If only a platoon of the enemy, or even a company, came to move them, they'd be able to give a good accounting of themselves, perhaps even drive the Cubans off.
 
Any larger force, however, would soon overwhelm them and inflict great casualties.

Hartford glanced towards Skronski, who nodded.
 
"Enough chatter," Hartford said, "we execute Plan B, as in Bullshit, at two AM, which is forty minutes from now."

Captain Tuttle, chair of the so-called escape committee grinned.
 
His men would execute Plan B as in Bullshit.
 
"Then we have confirmation, sir?"

Hartford refused declined the bait.
 
"Let's just say we're very hopeful."

At two AM precisely, carefully positioned American marines and sailors within the camp opened up with their small arsenal of weapons.
 
Their targets were the watchtowers surrounding the camp.
 
Within seconds, they'd shredded the towers and the men in them.
 
Americans with home-made wire cutters clipped the fence in a number of places and some climbed up the towers in time to turn the machine guns on the guard barracks.
 
The machine guns chattered insanely, ripping the fragile buildings and butchering the Cubans who tried to escape from them, and piling their bodies three and four deep.

Tuttle looked at the carnage.
 
He was pleased.
 
"Oh, they are going to be really pissed.
 
How much time do you think we've bought, sir?"

"Maybe an hour, maybe a little more," Hartford said.
 
All the deaths saddened him, but, as he reminded himself, this was war and war was hell.
 
"Regardless, we get the hell out of here."

"What about our prisoners?" Keppel asked.
 
These were the two gate guards and their lieutenant.

"If they want to come, bring them.
 
Otherwise leave them tied up so Castro's boys can find them and think they didn't cooperate with us.
 
Of course, Ortega goes with us."

Half an hour later, the camp was empty.
 
Two thousand American POWs were winding down a path in the direction of the ocean.
 
If the marines hadn't landed, or if the Cubans decided to follow, or if they were mistaken for Cubans, they would be in deep kim-chee as the old hands from the Korean War liked to say.

As they approached the coast, a handful of heavily armed navy SEALS emerged and guided them.
 
Plan B, as in Bullshit, was operational.

Less than a mile away, General Humberto Cordero watched the exodus through his own binoculars.
 
He couldn't see much, but it was clear that the camp was being evacuated.
 
He had nearly ten thousand men in the area and thought he should send at least a number of them after the prisoners.
 
But his orders were succinct.
 
He was to defend Santiago, and there was no reference to the prisoners; ergo, the prisoners were not part of Havana's plan.
 
He would ignore them.

Besides, he had other issues of a highly personal nature.
 
He turned to his companion.
 
"I sincerely hope this will be remembered."

Charley Kraeger nodded.
 
"You've always been a friend, Umberto."

Cordero chuckled, "Yes, just like you've always been an East German, or a Hollander.
 
I have to admit I was surprised to see you when you showed up here."

Kraeger poured them each another drink.
 
Kraeger wasn't all that fond of vodka, but it was all that Cordero had.
 
To his surprise, Elena hadn't been all that upset when he was tapped to make one more field trip on behalf of the CIA and coordinate with an old contact, Cordero.
 
This, he guaranteed her, was the absolute last time he would leave the United States of America unless he went on vacation.
 
Or a honeymoon, he’d assured her.

"And what about Allesandro?" Kraeger asked.

"The noxious little spy from Havana?"

"Yes.
 
Can he be a problem for you?"

Cordero smiled coldly and checked his watch.
 
"Very sadly, he is on the road in his car and is scheduled to be killed by an American bomb in about fifteen minutes."

Kraeger raised his class in mock salute.
 
"My sympathies to his family on their anticipated tragic loss."

"He didn't have a family.
 
He was spawned from the slime of the sea.
 
Just like Castro."

The statement about Alleesandro was a clear indication that Cordero had friends who were as deeply opposed to Castro as Esteban and the idiots from Miami who had landed south of Havana and were now steaming away as fast as their decrepit ship could take them.

Kraeger handed Cordero a valise filled with Russian rubles.
 
American dollars would have been a dead giveaway if Ortega had tried to spend them in a communist Cuba.

"I know you don't need this and didn't ask for it, but maybe you can put it to good use."

Cordero took the bag.
 
A little too eagerly, Kraeger thought.
 
"If I can find a way to use it to help get rid of Fidel, I will.
 
Otherwise, it might help feed my family or, if things really go to hell, help me get the fuck out of here."

They shook hands and Kraeger departed.
 
The bombardment to the west of Santiago had ceased.
 
In a little while the Cubans would realize that there wouldn't be a landing in that area to cut off Santiago from the rest of Cuba.
 
Instead, the marines would be landing directly at Gitmo.

The once proud Guantanamo Bay Naval Base more resembled a ruined German city from World War II than an American military facility.
 
Scarcely a building remained that hadn't been at least seriously damaged and most were totally destroyed.
 
In many cases only charred and fractured walls and piles of debris were left.
 
Craters from bombs and artillery had chewed up the roads and made driving an adventure for those heading inland in their jeeps and M59 armored personnel carriers.

Everything useful had either been destroyed in the fighting or by Castro's forces after the takeover.
 
Castro had sworn he would wipe the base off the face of the earth and, for all intents and purposes, he'd succeeded.
 

Ross recalled pictures he'd seen of the devastation in Europe after World War II and thought this was a microcosm of that destruction.
 
It would take a hell of a lot of time, money, and effort to rebuild Gitmo, but, apparently, the United States government was going to do exactly that.
 
Was the base worth it?
 
Who knew?
 
Was it necessary, or would it be done simply to prove it could be done and further aggravate Castro?
 
It was another good question that he wasn't in a position to answer.
 

Cathy had been unable to find much of her apartment and that disappointed her.
 
She had left a lot of clothing and items of jewelry in it and now they were all gone.
 
Sure, the jewelry wasn't all that valuable, mainly costume stuff, and it could be replaced, but it was part of her life and it just seemed so frustrating and insulting for her possessions to have disappeared.
 
She wondered if some Cuban women were parading around their villages in her stuff.
 
She rooted through the rubble for a little while longer and gave up.
 
At least she hadn't brought down any family valuables or anything else that was truly important.
 
She reluctantly decided that pictures and trinkets could be replaced.

Ross had much the same situation, but, as a marine, he had little in the way of personal possessions on the base.
 
He was not going digging in the ruins of his quarters like an archeologist and Cathy, finally grinning and accepting her own losses, concurred.

Andrew Ross's small band of soldiers and marines was disappearing.
 
Morton had taken Romanski to a field hospital to get his leg treated.
 
After that, they planned to hitch a flight up to the states and, hopefully, to Fort Benning where their families awaited.
 
Their wives had been notified of their survival.
 
Romanski had grinned wickedly and mentioned something about he and his wife going for pony rides.
 
Cathy wondered why they didn't just stay home and celebrate.

Cullen, Ward and Groth had attached themselves to a marine unit and were going to show them the graves
 
where the men killed in the first assault on their bunker had been buried.
 
Andrew had thought about going with him, but had been overruled by some general, and wasn't quite certain why.
 

As suspected, Andrew hadn't really been shot.
 
One of Che's bullets must have ricochet off of something, maybe his carbine, and struck him in the chest, stunning him.
 
A medic told him he had a bad bruise and possibly a cracked rib, and that time would be the best way to heal.
 
The pain was far from unbearable and he would deal with it, as if he had a choice.
 
It did make walking and deep breathing difficult, another good excuse for staying put.
 
It hadn't stopped him from enjoying the pressure of Cathy's slender body against his when she'd hugged him tightly.
 
Some pains could easily be endured, he decided.

A few yards away, a column of marines moved by, single file on each side of the road.
 
Jeeps and the occasional armored personnel carrier drove down the middle.
 
Curiously, there hadn't been any tanks yet.
 
They would come, he assumed.
 
But did it matter?
 
The Cuban army was doing a fine job of making itself scarce.
 
Those who hadn't gone home were in full retreat to the west and Havana.

Scuttlebutt said that the marines heading north had linked up with the army coming south; thus trapping any Cuban forces that hadn't made it westward.
 
It was also said that large numbers of Cuban prisoners were being bagged.

Every now and then, a passing marine would recognize Cathy and wave or holler encouragement.
 
Others would then cheer.
 
Obviously, she was famous, if only for a little while.
 
She bemoaned the fact that she looked like hell.
 
Her hair was a mess and her clothing was filthy. Andrew assured her that he thought she was beautiful.
 

She reached over and grabbed his hand.
 
"What's the saying - this too shall pass?" she said.

"Just let's not us pass," Andrew responded.

She sat closer to him.
 
"Don't worry about that.
 
I'm just curious as to why they said to stay put and wait?"

He laughed.
 
"Maybe it's because we're two civilians.
 
My discharge should have come through a couple of weeks ago and you never were in the military.
 
Maybe you'll get paid for all the time you spent with us?
 
Of course, if it's military scale it won't amount to much."

He said it lightly, but he thought he knew why the brass wanted him isolated.
 
Washington had also told them to avoid any contact with the press.
 
Apparently, there would be no mention of any Russian nuke in Cuban hands.
 
That was just fine by both of them.
 
They would wait and see what played out.