Cuba (44 page)

He also thought he saw more contrails high in the sky,

but he might have imagined those too.

He would swim until he died, he decided.

That was all a man could do. He would do that and God

would know he tried and forgive him his sins and take him

into heaven.

Somehow that thought gave him peace.

“Gentlemen, your backing this morning touched me

deeply.”

Alejo Vargas was sitting with General Alba and

Admiral

STEPHEN COONTS

Delgado in his office at the Ministry of

Interior. Colonel Santana was parked in a

chair near the window with his leg on a stool and a

bandage around his head.

“What happened to you, Colonel”…”…General Alba

asked.

“I was in an accident.”

“Traffic gets worse and worse.”

“Yes.”

“Gentlemen, let’s get right down to itea”…Alejo

Vargas began. “Right now I don’t have the

support of the people. The mobs are out of control. We

must restore order and confidence in the government; that

is absolutely critical.”

Delgado and Alba nodded. Even a dictator

needs some level of popular support. Or at

least acceptance by a significant percentage of the

population.

“I propose to move on two fronts. I will

send a delegate to Hector Sedano, see if

he can be enlisted to endorse me. Getting out of

prison will be an inducement, of course, but one can’t

rely on anything that flimsy. I thought of naming him

as ambassador to the Vatican.”

“That would be a popular moveea”…Alba thought, and

Delgado agreed.

“All my adult life I have been a student of

Fidel Castro’s political wilesea”…Vargas

continued. “I learned many things from watching the master.

This may seem to you gentlemen to be heresy, but without

the United States, Castro would have lasted

only a few years in powerhad the world turned in the

usual way he would have been overthrown by a coup or

mass uprising when it became obvious that he could not

deliver on his promises. Fidel Castro

survived because he had a scapegoat: he had the

United States to blame for all our

difficulties.”

“One should not say things like that publicly, but there is

much truth in that observation.”

“The Yanquis never failed to play their part in

Fidel’s little dramasea”…Delgado agreed, and

everyone in the room laughed, even Santana.

When his audience was again attentive, Alejo

Vargas

continued: “I propose to unite the Cuban people against

the United States one more time, and this time I shall be out

in front leading them.”

Jake Grafton had dinner that evening with the commanding

officers of the units in the battle group. In

addition to the skippers of the ships, the marine landing force

commander, Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt, and the

air wing commander aboard

United States

were also there. Held in the carrier’s flag wardroom,

the dinner was one of those rare official

functions when everyone relaxed enough to enjoy themselves.

Surrounded by fellow career officers, Admiral

Grafton once again felt that sense of belonging

to something bigger than the people who comprised it that had charmed

him about the service thirty years ago. The

tradition, the camaraderie, the sense of engaging in

an activity whose worth could not be measured in

dollars or years of service made the brutally

long hours, the family separations, and the demands of

service life somehow easier to endure.

He was basking in that glow when one of his aides

slipped in a side door and handed him a

top-secret flash message from Washington.

Jake put on his glasses before he took the

message from the folder.

He scanned the message, then read it again slowly.

Ballistic missiles in Cuba, biological

warheads, Castro dead comhe thanked the aide, who

left the room.

Jake read the message again very carefully as me

afterdinner conversation buzzed around him. The message

ordered him to stage commando raids on the suspected

ballistic missile sites, “as soon as

humanly possible, before the missiles can be launched

at the United States.”

“Gentlemen, let us adjourn to the flag

spacesea”…Jake Grafton said, and led the commanders

from the wardroom.

When the group was together in the flag spaces, with the

door closed behind them, Jake said, “The course of

human events has catapulted us straight

into another mess. I just received this message from

Washington.”…He read it

to them. When he finished, no one said anything. Jake

folded the message and returned it to the red folder.

He turned to the captains of the two Aegis-class

guidedmissile cruisers that were assigned to his

battle group:

“I want you to get underway as soon as you get

back to your ships. Take your ships through the

Windward Passage, then proceed at flank

speed to a position between the island of Cuba and the

Florida Keys that allows you to engage and destroy

any missiles fired from Cuba toward the United

States. Make every knot you can squeeze out of your

ships. Every minute counts. When you come up with an

estimated time of arrival, send it to me. We

won’t lift a finger against the Cubans until both

your ships are in position.”

He shook hands with the captains, and they

strode out of the room.

“The rest of us might as well get comfortable.

Looks like we are in for a long evening.”

Ocho Sedano looked at it for fifteen minutes

before the thought occurred to him that he should find out what it

was. Something white, floating perhaps fifteen feet

away, slightly off to his right.

Now that the existence of the white thing had registered on

his consciousness, he made the effort to turn, to stroke

toward it.

He had been in the water all day. The sun would

soon be down and he would be alone on die sea.

After the sharks this morning there had been only Ocho

and the old man; now the fisherman no longer answered

his calls. Hadn’t for several hours, in fact.

Maybe he just drifted out of hailing range, Ocho

thought. That must be it.

The sharks killed all the others, sparing only the

two men who had gone off the sinking boat first and

swam away from the group. At least he thought the

others were dead he had no way of knowing the truth of

it.

He had thought about the decision to swim away from the

sinking

Angel del Mar

all day, off and on, trying to

decide just what instinct had told him and the old man

to get away from the others. Drowning people often drag under

anyone they can reachno doubt that knowledge was a factor in the

old man’s thinking, in his thinking, for he did not

want to put the respensibility for his life on

anyone but himself.

Perhaps those who were attacked by the sharks were the lucky

ones. Their ordeal was over.

Dorahad she been one of them?

Diego Coca was already dead, of course. He

died… a day or two ago… didn’t he?

Jumped into the sea and swam away from the

Angel del Mar.

Ah, Diego, you ass. I hope you are burning in

hell.

He reached for the white thing, which of course skittered out

of reach. He paddled some more, reached up under it.

A milk jug. A one-gallon plastic milk

jug without a cap, floating upside down.

Apparently intact. He lifted the milky white

plastic jug from the sea, let the water drain out,

then lowered it into the water. The thing made a powerful

float.

He pulled it toward him.

Hard to hold on to, but very buoyant.

How could he hold it, use the power of its

buoyancy to keep himself afloat through the night?

Inside his shirt? He worked comthe jug down, Jried

to get it under his shirt. The thing escaped once, shot

out of the water. He snagged it, tried it again.

The second time he got it under his shirt. The thing

tried to push him over backward, but if he leaned

into it, he could keep his weight pretty much balanced

over it. Then he could just float, ride without effort.

As long as he could keep the open neck facing

downward, the jug would keep him up.

Ocho was celebrating his good fortune when a swell

tipped him over. He fought back upright, adjusted

the jug in the evening light.

Maybe he should just forget the jughe seemed to be working

as hard staying over it as he did treading water.

With the last rays of the sun in his face, he decided

to keep the jug, learn to ride it.

“I’m going to be rescuedea”…he said silently

to himself, “going to be rescued. I must just have

patience.”

After a bit he added, “And faith in the Lord.”

Ocho was a Catholic, of course, but he had never

been one to pray much. He wondered if he

should pray now. Surely God knew about the mess

he was inwhat could he conceivably tell Him that He

didn’t already know?

In the twilight the water became dark. Still restless,

still rising and falling, but dark and black as the grave.

He would probably die this night. Sometime during the

night he would go to sleep and drown or a shark would

rip at him or he would just run out of will. He was oh

so very tired, a lethargy that weighed on every muscle.

Tonight,

he thought.

But I don’t want to die. I want to live!

Please, God, let me live one more day. If

I am not rescued tomorrow, then let me die tomorrow

night.

That was a reasonable request. His strength would give

out by tomorrow night anyway.

The last of the light faded from the sky, and he was alone

on the face of the sea.

La Cabana Prison was an old pile of

masonry. In the hot, humid climate of Cuba

the interior was cool, a welcome respite from the

heat. Yet in the dark corridors filled with

stagnant air the odor of mold and decay seemed

almost overpowering. The iron bars and grates

and cell doors were wet with condensation and covered with

layers of rust.

During the day small windows with nearly opaque,

dirty glass admitted what light there was. At

night naked bulbs hanging where two corridors

met or an iron gate barred the way lit the

interior; and for whole stretches of corridors and

cells there was no light at all.

Hector Sedano saw the flashlight even before he

heard people coming along the corridor. One flashlight

and two

or three, maybe even four peopleit was

difficult to tell.

The flashlight led the visitors to this cell, and it

turned to pin him on the cot.

“There he is.”

“I will talk to him alone.”

“Yes,

Senor Presidente.”

One man remained standing in the semidarkness outside

the cell after the others left. After the flashlight

Hector’s eyes adjusted slowly. Now he could

see himAlejo Vargas.

Vargas lit a short cigarillo. As he struck

the match Hector closed his eyes, and

kept them closed until he smelled tobacco

smoke and heard Vargas’s voice.

“Father Sedano, we meet again.”

Hector thought that remark didn’t deserve a

reply.

“I seem to recall a conversation we had, whattwo

or three years ago”…”…Vargas said thoughtfully. “I

told you that religion and politics don’t mix.”

“You even had a biblical quote ready to fire

at me, Mark twelve-seventeen. Most

unexpected.”

“You didn’t take my advice.”

“No.”

“You don’t often follow advice, do you?”

“No.”

“I came here tonight to see if you wish to make your

peace with Caesar and join my cabinet, perhaps as our

ambassador to the Church.”

“You’re the president now?”

‘Temporarily, Until the election.”

“Then the title will become permanent.”

“I don’t think anyone will want to run against me.”

“Perhaps not.”

“But let’s take it a day at a time. Temporary

acting president Vargas asks you to serve

your country in this capacity.”

“And if I say no?”

STEPHEN COONTS

“I want to sleep with a clean conscience, which is

why I came here tonight to make the offer.”

“Your conscience is easily cleansed if that is all

it takes.”

“It does not trouble me too much.”

“A man who lives as you do, a lively conscience

would hurt worse than a bad tooth.”

“So your answer is no.”

“That it is.”

“But at least you considered my offer, so I can sleep

knowing you chose your own fate.”

“My fate is in God’s hands.”

“Ah, if only I had the time to discuss religion

with you, an intelligent, learned man. Time does not

allow me that luxury. Still, I have one other little thing

to discuss with you, and I caution you, this is not the time for a

yes or no answer. This thing you must think about very