Cuba

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Over Cuba the next morning the cloud cover was typical for that time of year: as the sun rose the prevailing westerly winds spawned cumulus clouds over the warming land. The longer the clouds remained over land, the higher they grew. In the area east of Havana where the Americans believed the missile silos and processing lab were located the cloud cover averaged forty or fifty percent by ten in the morning, enough to inhibit satellite and U-2 photography of the area. Infrared photography was not affected by the clouds, nor were the synthetic-aperture radar studies done by air force E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft.

Oblivious to the intense scrutiny that the island was now getting from the Americans, General Alba conferred that morning with Alejo Vargas, then ordered troops and tanks moved into position around the silos. There were actually eight silos, but only six held operational missiles. The other two missiles had been used as sources of spare parts through the years. Had Alba and Vargas realized what was coming, they might have elected to dissipate the American military effort by garrisoning all eight silos: as it was, they didn’t think of it.

The sun had been up just two hours when two C-130 Hercules landed at the naval air station at Key West, Florida. On the civilian side of the field people stood and watched as the Hercs parked on the other side of the runway. Soon navy personnel began unloading the transports. The civilian kibitzers did not know what the pallets and canisters contained, and after a while they went on about their business. Four armed marines in combat gear took up locations where they could guard the transports.

Among other things, the transports had delivered belted 20-mm ammunition for miniguns, Hellfire missiles, flares, and 2.75-inch rockets. They also delivered tools and spare parts to work on Marine Corps AH-1W SuperCobras.

Two hours after the Hercs landed, the first two SuperCobras settled onto the military mat. By noon sixteen of the mottled green helicopters were parked in the sun.

The two-man crews didn’t leave the base, but went into an old, decrepit navy hangar nearby for briefings.

Two more C-130s wearing marine markings landed an hour or so later. They parked near the first two. As navy trucks began refueling the planes, marines disembarked and spread their gear on the ramp. They lounged around, a few walked a safe distance away and lit cigarettes, and after awhile a navy truck brought hot food.

Troops, tanks, and trucks were moving in Cuba by noon, blocking roads and creating traffic jams. By midafternoon the E-3 Sentry crews had alerted the National Security Agency, which passed the information on to USS United States. Jake Grafton went to the ship’s intelligence center to see what the computers could tell him.

After listening to the briefer, Jake Grafton muttered, “Damn.”

He went over the data, then asked, “How much combat power are they moving, and when will it be in place?”

In New York City the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations paid a call on the Cuban ambassador. After exchanging civilities, the American said bluntly, “My government has asked me to inform you that if the Cuban government releases biological toxins of any kind in the United States, for any reason, the American government will massively retaliate.”

“‘Massively retaliate’?” The Cuban’s eyes widened. “What does that mean?”

“Sir, I was instructed to deliver the message, not to interpret it. Here is the statement in writing.” The American handed over a sheet of paper and took her leave.

Aboard USS Hue City, now underway precisely halfway between Cuba and Key West at ten knots, Ocho Sedano awoke in midafternoon from a deep sleep. He found that he was in a hospital bed on a small ward, with two intravenous solutions dripping into his veins. His vision was blurred, he could not focus his eyes.

The doctor on the ward noticed that he was awake and came over to check him. In a few minutes an American sailor who spoke Spanish came to interpret.

“Your eyes are sore from the salt of the water. They will get better. Can you tell us your name, señor?”

“Juan Sedano,” he whispered, because he could not talk above a whisper. “They call me El Ocho.”

“And where are you from?”

“Cuba.”

“How long were you in the sea?”

“Two days and nights, I think. I am not sure. Maybe more than that.”

The doctor put a solution into Ocho’s eyes while the questions and answers were flying back and forth. After blinking mightily Ocho thought he could see a little better. The doctor was examining Ocho’s fingertips and the calluses on his hands. Now he held up Ocho’s hand and peeled off a callus. Then he smiled. “You were very lucky.”

The translator interpreted.

“Where am I?” Ocho asked.

“Aboard Hue City, a United States Navy ship. You were rescued by a helicopter. The man who saw you in the water wants to shake your hand when you awaken. He saved your life. May I call him?”

“I would like to meet him.”

It felt very comfortable lying there, looking at the fuzzy beds and blurred people bustling about, checking him over, so different from Angel del Mar. Or floating on the sea.

Maybe he was dead. He examined that possibility but concluded it was not so. This was not a bit like the heaven he envisioned, and he was hungry. He told the interpreter of his hunger, and the man went to talk to the doctor, who had wandered off.

They brought food about the same time that Autrey James came breezing in with one of his pals, who had a camera. James was a happy fellow with a wide smile — the white teeth in a dark face were the only details that Ocho could see. James got down beside the bed and posed while the man with the camera took many pictures. Another man with a camera came, some kind of television camera, and he and James shook hands again. Several men in khaki stood behind the camera watching.

The interpreter relayed the questions from Autrey James and the television cameraman. When did you leave Cuba, What was the name of the boat, How many people were there?

“Eighty-four people.”

“Eighty-four?” asked the interpreter in disbelief.

“Eighty-four,” whispered Ocho Sedano.

“What happened to the boat?”

“It sank.”

“And the people?”

“They went into the water … sharks.”

“Sharks?”

“Some people were swept over the side during a storm our first night at sea. Diego Coca shot the captain, some people died of thirst … Diego jumped into the sea. The children died of exhaustion and hunger, I think — it is really impossible to say. There was no food or water, only rain to drink. When the boat sank those who were left were eaten by sharks. If they didn’t drown. I hope Dora drowned.

“The old fisherman and I were spared …. Did you find him? The old fisherman? Did you see him in the ocean?” He clawed at Autrey James, who drew back out of reach.

“No,” the interpreter said. “You were the only one.”

They went away then, all of them, left him to eat the food and stare at the ceiling and think about the fact that he was alive and all the others were dead.

The others were dead. He was alive. What did that mean?

Was God crazy?

Why me?

He was thinking about that when someone came to put solution in his eyes again. This time the solution made him cry.

He sobbed for a minute or two, then his body gave out and he slept.

“Why did you not put the gold in a bank vault?”

Mercedes had asked this question of Fidel several years ago, when he first told her of the gold pesos. As she sat on her mother-in-law’s small porch completing her blouse, she remembered the question, and Fidel’s answer:

“If we kept the gold in a bank, the international bankers would have learned of it eventually, would have demanded that we post it as security for a loan. Then a hurricane would come or the bottom would drop out of the sugar market one year, and the gold would be gone.”

“But the gold does not help Cuba. Why own it?”

“The gold is ours,” he said obstinately. “When it is gone it is gone for all Cubans forever.”

“But you hid it, so it is gone now.”

“Oh, no. You and I know where it is. As long as it is hidden, it belongs to Cuba.”

She couldn’t shake him — he had the peasant’s love of the secret hoard, the instinctual drive to bury a can of money or hide it in a mattress, just in case. No matter how bad things got in the house, the money was always there, hidden, an asset that could be tapped to stave off starvation or disaster.

He said as much when he admitted, “In the middle of the night, when I am alone and the world is heavy on my shoulders, I remember we still have the gold.”

Fidel and Che Guevara hid it together, for Cuba. Guevara was killed in Bolivia and apparently took the secret to his grave. Fidel didn’t want to — he told the one person on this earth he trusted.

She wished she didn’t know this thing. As she worked on the last seam of the blouse, she thought about this great secret, about what she should do.

Mercedes Sedano had confided in no one, had written nothing down. With Fidel dead the gold was only one heartbeat away from being lost forever. She must do something, but what?

Fidel had been a knot of contradictions. She had argued with him — challenged the macho man himself — and he had admitted some of his failures, which was a rare moment for him. Not all of his errors, but some.

“I am the only communist in Cuba,” he said, laughing. “Becoming a communist was a mistake — of course I can never say that in public. We had to declare our independence from the American financiers and corporations. In the fullness of time it turned out that the Russian horse couldn’t run the race, which was unfortunate, but that didn’t mean we were wrong in the first place.” He shrugged.

He had the Latin’s ability to accept life’s vicissitudes as they came with courage and grace.

“The best thing about communism was the dictatorship. The economic twaddle meant nothing. Someone had to show the Cuban people they could stand on their own feet, that they didn’t need to sell their souls to the Americans or the Catholic Church.” He smiled again, made a gesture toward heaven. “The truth is we were too poor to afford the Church or the Americans.”

If Santana or Vargas tortured her, she would tell them about the gold. To suffer horribly and die for a secret that you thought illogical was worse than stupid — it would be a sin.

Did he ever wonder what she would do if she found herself in this situation?

She finished the last seam, shook out the blouse, and held it up so she could view it.

Had Fidel really trusted her to make the decision that was best for Cuba, or did he just think that she would keep her mouth shut?

For Maximo Sedano the question was simple and stark: Where was the gold?

Rumors had circulated for forty years, and not a flake had ever surfaced. Several men swore they had helped melt the coins into ingots in a smelter in the basement of the Ministry of Finance, but they never knew what happened to the ingots. Alejo Vargas had been running the secret police for twenty years and the Ministry of Interior for the last ten and probably hunting for the gold for at least nineteen, and he hadn’t found it. At least Maximo didn’t believe he had. In forty years no loose ends had unraveled … so there must have been no loose ends.

The conclusion Maximo drew from these facts was that only a very few people — Fidel, perhaps his brother Raúl, maybe Che — had known the secret in the first place. Today the secret might be known by a few people who had been close to them. In any event, there were no elderly workmen about who liked to run their mouth when they drank their rum — Vargas would have found anyone like that years ago.

So the gold wasn’t made into statues, poured like concrete into a floor or foundation, made into bricks and used to construct a state building, or transported to some flyspecked hovel and buried under the floor. No. If the gold had been hidden this way, someone involved in the labor would have talked during the last forty years.

If there were secret records waiting to be discovered or letters in bank vaults, Maximo would never discover them. All he had were his wits.

With Fidel dead and Alejo Vargas ascendant, Maximo was using his wits now, applying them as never before.

In search of inspiration, he walked the streets of Havana to the Museum of the Revolution.

Like so many revolutionaries who swashbuckled through the pages of human history, after his victory Fidel found it expedient to enshrine himself as the savior of the nation so that he might remain at the helm permanently. Of course, to properly do the job it was also necessary to build a monument to the venality and depravity of his enemies, because great heroes need worthy opponents. Amazingly, all this good, evil, and greatness fit neatly under one roof: the presidential palace that had been the residence of Fulgencio Batista.

Maximo walked quickly through the exhibits that detailed Batista’s corruption — what he sought would not be there.

He quickly found what he was looking for. Fidel the savior, “El Lider Maximo,” portraits, busts, memorabilia, candid and posed photographs, heroic paintings — all of this was enough to turn the stomach of anyone who had actually known the man, Maximo thought. Alas, Fidel had been very flawed clay: megalomaniacal, filled with a sense of his own magnificent destiny, boorish, opinionated, pigheaded, insufferable, prejudiced, loquacious to a fault, and, all too often, just plain wrong. What a tragedy that this self-annointed messiah was stranded in this third world backwater and never had the opportunity to save the species, which he could have done if only God had sent him to Moscow or Washington.

Maximo tried to stifle his disgust and concentrate upon the displays before him.

Fidel and Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, the other immortals … The university, the Moncada Barracks, the trial, prison, handwritten letters, exile, guerrilla days …

He carefully looked at everything, then wandered on. He came to a room devoted to the fall of Havana; Fidel riding into the city on a tank, ecstatic children. Then Fidel the ruler; Fidel the baseball player; Fidel and Che fishing in the Gulf Stream; Fidel with Hemingway, Richard Nixon, Khrushchev, Kosygin, the famous and the infamous, always togged out in those abysmal green fatigues; dozens of shots of Fidel with his mouth open in front of crowds … God, how the man could talk to a captive audience!

Maximo was in the next room looking at photos of Fidel eating rice and beans with schoolchildren when the incongruity of the photo of Fidel and Che fishing struck him. Odd, that.

He went back to it. The two were on some kind of fishing boat, with fighting chairs and big rods, fishing for marlin probably.

Wait a minute … The marina where Maximo kept his boat … When he first moved it there the harbormaster had once told him that Fidel used to leave from that marina to fish.

Now he remembered. Yes. The old man said Fidel and Che fished often, every few days, went out by themselves, often spent the night at anchor in the harbor. After a year or so they tired of it, the old man said wistfully, never came back. The boat belonged to the Cuban Navy — seized from an American — and was eventually converted to a gunboat.

He could remember the old man talking, could see the wind playing with his white hair as he stood on the dock in the sun talking about his hero, Fidel, about that moment one day long ago when their lives came close together.

The harbormaster had been dead for years. The new man was far too young to remember anything.

What if the gold were on the floor of Havana Harbor?

Each night Fidel and Che could have lowered hundreds of pounds of it over the side of the boat free from observation. Given enough nights …

Over time the gold could have gradually disappeared from the Finance Ministry. If no one but Fidel and Che handled the gold, there was no one to talk.

Maximo could see logistical problems with this possibility, of course, but not insurmountable ones.

He left the museum deep in thought.

“The air force’s AWACS reports that the Cuban military is moving toward the silo sites, Admiral.”

The briefer was a commander, the senior Air Intelligence officer on the carrier battle group’s staff.

“The troops are being moved from barracks in the Havana area. We can see tanks and trucks, which presumably contain supplies and troops. The columns are moving slowly, eight to ten miles per hour. Cuban troops have already arrived at missile site number one. Just arriving on sites two and three. We estimate that there will be no Cuban military presence on sites four though six until tomorrow morning after dawn.”

“Why so slow?” Jake Grafton asked.

“These are old tanks, Soviet T-54s. We think they see no reason to risk breakdowns by driving faster. The consensus seems to be that the Cubans aren’t on full alert.”

“Okay,” Jake Grafton said, because there was nothing else to say. The god of battles was dealing the cards.

The briefer continued, pointing out bridges and crossroad choke points, and Jake tried to concentrate, which was difficult. When the briefer finished, Jake dismissed his staff and sat staring at the map on the bulkhead.

The plan was good: the weather would be typical, the forces he had should be adequate, they knew their jobs … but if the Cubans fired those missiles at the United States, two Aegis cruisers were all he had to prevent the missiles from reaching their targets.

Should this whole operation be delayed until antimissile batteries could be moved to south Florida?

Every hour of delay meant more American troops would die taking those missile sites. Yet if the missiles successfully delivered their warheads, the results would be catastrophic.

He looked again at the plan — at the timing, at the units assigned.

Biological weapons. Poliomyelitis.

He could always use more people, of course. One of the primary goals of warfighting — some people argued, the only goal — was to direct overwhelming force at the point where the enemy was most vulnerable. Or as Bedford Forrest put it, “Get there firstest with the mostest.”

Already the Cubans were digging in around silos one and two. What if the forces he had committed couldn’t crack those nuts?

The urge to wait for a bigger hammer had Jake Grafton in its grip now. He felt like David with his slingshot. Maybe he needed more Aegis cruisers, some Patriot missile batteries, more cruise missiles, troops, Ospreys, airplanes.

If one of those missiles got through …

He found a handkerchief in his hip pocket and mopped his face.

His stomach tried to turn over.

He hadn’t felt like this since Vietnam. Way back in those happy days he had been responsible only for his bombardier’s life and his own miserable existence. All things considered, that load had been relatively light.

This load …

Well, Jake Grafton, Uncle Sugar’s been paying you good money all these years while you’ve been getting fat and sassy on the long grass. It’s payback time.

In midafternoon Toad Tarkington went to the communication spaces to call his wife, Rita Moravia, on one of the ship-to-ship voice circuits. He had done this a time or two before and the chief petty officer was accommodating when the circuits were not in use for official business. This afternoon he asked the chief for an encrypted circuit but they were all busy — the chief handed him a clear-voice handset. Toad called Kearsarge and left a message for his wife. Ten minutes later she called him back.

“Hey, Toad-man.”

“Hey, Hot Woman.”

Tonight, he knew, she would be flying a V-22 Osprey, hauling troops to missile silo two.

“Just wanted to hear your voice,” Toad said, as matter-of-factly as he could. He could envision this conversation coming over radios in ships throughout the battle group and in Cuban monitoring stations. He had no intention of giving away secrets nor of entertaining kibitzers.

Rita was equally circumspect. “Got a letter from Tyler. He wrote it with Na-Na’s help, of course.”

“How’s Ty-Guy doing?”

“He has a girlfriend, the Goldman girl across the street.”

“That’s my boy,” Toad said. “A lover already. A chip off the old brick.”

Aboard Kearsarge Rita was holding the handset in a death grip. She loved life: her son, her husband, her job, the people she worked with — every jot and comma of her life. Oh, of course there were days when the stress and problems threatened to overwhelm her ability to cope, but somehow she managed. In the wee hours of the night when she paused to evaluate, she knew that she wouldn’t change a thing. Not one single thing.

Now she realized that Toad hadn’t spoken in several seconds.

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Rita said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

“From day one.”

“I remember the first day I saw you. Wow.”

“When we were at Whidbey, I thought you hated me.”

“And I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Thank God you finally screwed up the courage to kiss me.”

“Wish I could now,” he shot back.

Tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to tell him how much he had meant all these years, how grateful she was that they shared life, and nothing came out. She put her hand over the mouthpiece so he wouldn’t hear her cry.

“Next time we’re together, better not wear lipstick,” he said.

“I never wear lipstick,” she managed, her voice barely under control.

“It’s a good thing, too,” he said, his voice cracking.

The silence grew and grew.

“Well, I gotta go,” Toad finally said. “They wanna use this circuit to trade movies or something.”

“Yeah.”

“Vaya con Dios, baby.”

“You too, Toad-man.”

Toad found Jake Grafton in Combat huddled with Gil Pascal, the chief of staff. He listened to the conversation for a moment, then realized that the admiral was trying to assure himself that he had adequate forces to win. Tonight!

After a bit Jake turned toward Toad. “Let’s have your two cents,” he said.

“If we need anything, sir, it’s a bigger reserve. We have three V-22s with twenty-four marines each to go wherever they are needed. A while ago the CO of the carrier’s marine det asked if he and some of his people could get in on the fun. He called Kearsarge and found there is one extra Osprey. It’s being used as a backup to the first wave, but if it isn’t needed, then it’ll be an extra.”

Gil Pascal frowned. “The carrier’s marines haven’t been briefed,” he pointed out.

Jake glanced at Toad and raised one eyebrow.

“Sir, I was hoping you would let me go with them,” Tarkington replied cheerfully. “I’m as briefed as it’s possible to get.” Actually, as Ops, Tarkington wrote the plan.

“You’ve been planning to spring this on me all day, haven’t you?”

“I could take a satellite phone, give you a worm’s-eye view of the action, let you know if there is really a problem.”

“Did the marine det CO approach you with this marvelous idea, or did you approach him?”

Toad turned his eyes to the ceiling. “An officer I know well used to say, ‘You know me.’”

“I think I know that guy too,” Jake said, and chuckled. “Oh, all right, damn it — you can go. Gil and I will try to hold the fort without you. If the backup Osprey isn’t needed, you’ll be part of the cavalry. Tell the grunts to saddle up.”

The Spanish-speaking sailor who acted as an interpreter shook Ocho Sedano awake. “Ocho,” he said. “Ocho, a question has arisen. We wish to know if you are related to Hector Sedano.”

Ocho opened his eyes and focused on the interpreter, who appeared reasonably clear: His eyes were better, much better. He rolled over, then sat up in bed. He was still in sick bay aboard Hue City.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” said the American sailor.

“It is good to be alive,” Ocho whispered.

“Did you ever give up hope?”

“I suppose. I thought I would die, and was waiting for it. But I always wanted to live.”

The sailor grinned. This was the first American he had ever gotten to know, and he had a good grin, Ocho thought.

“The officers want to know,” the sailor said, “if you are related to Hector Sedano.”

“He is my brother.”

“I will tell them.”

Ocho nodded, then rubbed his head and stretched. He was hungry and thirsty. A glass of water was sitting on a rolling table beside the bed, so he drained it.

“May I have some food?”

“I will bring some.”

Ocho looked the sailor in the eyes. “I want to go back to Cuba. I should never have left.”

“I will tell them,” the sailor said, and left him there.

William Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini argued with Toad about how many marines wearing CBW suits should go into the warhead factory with them. “Just Tommy and I,” Chance said. “The more people that are in there the greater the chance of an accident.”

“How are you going to get your gear in there?”

“An armload at a time. It will take a little longer, but with only two guys going in and out, this whole evolution will be safer.”

“What if the Cuban Army shows up while you’re working?”

“The marines can defend us until the place goes up.”

They were in a ready room under the flight deck dressing in a corner under the television set, which was showing a continuous briefing by the Air Intelligence types. Radio frequencies, threat envelopes, timing, call signs, weather, everything was on the tube.

Carmellini was paying close attention to the briefers, Chance was arguing with Toad. “And I’m not taking a rifle or hand grenades or rations or any of that combat crap.”

“A pistol, then.”

“Got my own. Don’t want two.”

“Why are you being so obstinate, Mr. Chance?”

Chance sat down heavily in one of the ready-room chairs.

“I guess I’ve got a bad feeling about this commando stuff,” he said. “Charging in decked out like Captain America with rifle in hand scares me silly. Everybody and his brother will start shooting, and with cultures above-ground in vulnerable containers …” He shivered. “If we sneak in in civilian clothes … well, that’s what I’m used to. This military stuff frightens me.”

“You’re going to look funny walking into a dairy in civilian clothes with flares on your shoulders if there are Cuban troops sitting around the place guarding the cows.”

“You’re right, I know.” Chance shrugged.

“Gonna be an adventure,” Tommy Carmellini tossed in.

“You guys are big boys,” Toad Tarkington said. “I’m not going to nursemaid you. But this isn’t a game — a lot of lives are at stake. If you screw this up and we gotta go back in there later and fix it, you guys better be dead. Don’t bother coming back.”

Toad said it matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing a payroll deduction. Chance suddenly felt small.

“Okay,” he said. “Two other guys in CBW suits. But I’m in charge. If I go down, Tommy is.”

“Fine,” said Toad Tarkington, and went to find an encrypted telephone.

Terror wasn’t going to be enough to keep Alejo Vargas in office. He knew that. He could put the fear of God in the little sons of bitches and keep it there, but to sleep nights in Fidel’s house he was going to have to govern the country, to give a little here, a little there, and so on. He was prepared to do that — he had watched Fidel manipulate these people all of his adult life.

Today he sat in his office at the Ministry of the Interior — he had had no time to move to the presidential palace — receiving the members of the Council of State, of which he was the president.

“Señor Ferrara, it is a pleasure to see you again.”

Ferrara was short, fat, and wheezed when he moved. He was a member of the Council of State and the minister of electric power. He dropped into a chair across the desk from Vargas and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Good day, Señor President.”

Colonel Santana handed Vargas Ferrara’s affidavit. Vargas merely glanced at the signature, then laid it in his top right-hand drawer with the others. He didn’t read it because he knew exactly what the affidavit contained — an emotional eyewitness account of the murder of Raúl Castro by Hector Sedano. Vargas and Santana had drafted the document this morning.

Before each member of the Council of State met with Vargas, Santana presented them with an affidavit for signature. Most intuitively understood that signatures were mandatory, and those that didn’t had the facts of life explained to them. So far, all had signed.

“I appreciate your support in this matter, Ferrara.”

“I will be frank with you, Vargas. That document means nothing.” He gestured toward the desk drawer. “You may be able to crack the whip in Havana, but the people do not support you. They want Hector Sedano in the presidential palace.”

“They will find a place in their heart for me.”

“Fidel Castro lasted for over forty years because he had the support of the people. The members of the National Assembly, the Council of State, the ministers, could not oppose him because they had no base of support. The Department of State Security didn’t control the population — Fidel did.”

“He did not tolerate opposition, nor will I.”

Ferrara said nothing.

What was it about Ferrara? Something was in the files, but he hadn’t looked at that file in years, and now it was gone. “Was it your daughter?”

Ferrara’s face became a mask.

“Your daughter … something about your daughter …”

He stared into Ferrara’s eyes.

“Help me a little.”

Even Ferrara’s wheezing had stopped.

“Maybe it will come to me.” Alejo Vargas leaned back in his chair. “Or maybe I will forget completely.”

Santana came in just then, handed him a sheet of paper, and said, “The ambassador to the United Nations received this note from the American UN ambassador.”

“Thank you for stopping by, Señor Ferrara. I appreciate you executing this affidavit. I look forward to working with you in the future. Good day.” Ferrara went.

Vargas read the note. “Any other American reaction to my speech or their president’s?”

“Yes, sir. As we expected, the American pundits generally support their president, but there are many who feel the United States has goaded Cuba into military adventurism with their political shunning of Castro. This feeling is widespread in Europe. Around the world there are many who feel that Cuba has endured much oppression at America’s hands.”

Vargas nodded. All the world roots for the underdog.

“The American carrier battle group that was in Guantánamo is now south of the Isle of Pines. They have only a few planes aloft.”

“And General Alba? Is he getting troops into position around the silos?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make sure the air force is on full alert, the army, the navy, the antiaircraft missile batteries, everyone. If the Americans come we will bloody their nose, perhaps even launch a missile. One missile will teach them a bitter lesson. They have never seen anything like that virus: they will have no stomach for it. The error of their ways is about to become quite apparent.”

“You do not believe this ‘massive retaliation’ threat?”

“It is laughable,” he scoffed. “No American president will ever order the use of weapons of mass destruction, even in retaliation. The Americans stopped making war years ago — they use force to send messages to ‘bad’ governments, never to kill the civilians who support that government. Guilt is the new American ethic: they would be horrified at the murder of the hungry.” He waved his hand dismissively, then became deadly serious:

“The Yanquis may, however, screw up the courage to use force against our armed forces. If so, the Cuban people will rally to the flag and we shall heroically defend our national honor. And use the missiles to show them the error of their ways.”

“Cubans are patriots,” Santana agreed. “After the Bay of Pigs, Castro was president for life.”

“A man with the right enemies can do anything,” Vargas declared, and smiled.