Havana

Chapter 24

Speshnev and the young man Castro sat at a sidewalk cafe in Centro, sipping coffee as the tanks rumbled by.

"Pah!" said Speshnev. "These are not tanks. I have seen tanks. In Spain, there were tanks. The German Panzers were huge and carried immense armor and armament. Now those were tanks!"

These tanks were American M4 Shermans, obsolete by a decade and somehow seconded to the Cuban national army for defense of the island against threat of invasion by, er, Haiti. They rumbled down La Rampa before turning onto 23rd, for Vedado, just a block or two away, where the battle still raged.

"It took them long enough to get here," Speshnev continued in his rant. "Good heavens, your people are so slow. It is the Spanish disease. Siesta, siesta, always the siesta. That is your curse. It's an abomination."

The tanks would signify the last phase of the battle. A squad of Batista's prize assault troops had attempted to broach the house several hours earlier, but withering automatic fire killed half and drove the others back. The house was sprayed with machine gun fire-its noise rattled off the windowpanes all over town-and when whoever was in charge decided enough was enough, that everyone inside was dead, he sent in two squads of asaltos. Half were killed, half driven away.

So then it was wait and snipe, wait and snipe, for hours, until at last the tanks arrived. Now they were here. It would soon be over.

"Isn't this a little dangerous?" asked Castro. Now and then a ricochet would whine by, loosed by who knew which side and off of how many bounces. Most people were behind cover, but Speshnev insisted on pretending it was a calm summer day. He sat drinking his sweet coffee. The waiter wore a pot on his head and scuttled along the ground like a crab, but continued in his profession, rather heroically.

"No," said Speshnev, "it is not a little dangerous. It is in fact very dangerous. You can never tell which freakish way a bullet or a chunk of shrapnel or a wave of concussion will bounce. At any moment, we could die. Waiter! Another coffee, please, pronto."

"Si, senor," came the meek call from within.

"Then why do we sit here? Is this to test my courage? Are you trying to prove me a coward? I am not a coward, but I see no point in pointless, flamboyant risk for no gain."

"Well, then, let me explain. All in all, what is happening so close by is an interesting object lesson for a young man who seeks to enter the profession in which you claim such an interest. Far more beneficial for you, I would say, than your awful chess, at which you show no progress and even less aptitude than before."

"I play Ping-Pong. Do you play Ping-Pong?"

"Of course not," Speshnev sniffed. "It's an idiotic game."

"It's actually rather fast and exciting and―"

"You are trying to change the subject. Shut that mouth and listen and try and learn. What is the moral of the day?"

"Don't fight tanks with machine guns?"

"That is the moral of any day. No, this day."

"I suppose―"

The world ended in noise. Then it came back again, just as it had been.

It was the sound of a Sherman's 75mm cannon firing. It seemed to momentarily suck the atmosphere from the planet and all within the cone of its percussion waves flinched, young Castro especially, for the pain seemed to drive two sharp needles into his ears.

"Eeee-gods!" he said.

"Yes," Speshnev said, "war is loud. Battle is tremendous. It is not for the―"

But another explosion followed, as loud, and then the sense of sitting and talking in a cafe was gone totally, as one shell boomed, then another, in steady succession, ever so painfully loud. The Shermans were firing salvos, the shells detonating in the wreckage of the once beautiful house. Dust and smoke filled the air, and the vibrations from each individual blast seemed to linger and mount as yet more shells were fired. The cannonade went on for a solid three minutes. Castro put his fingers in his ears and his face down on the table to avoid dust. The agent simply sipped his strong sweet coffee, seemingly unperturbed.

At last it was over.

"My mother!" said Castro. "That was something."

"Yes it was, and back to the subject please."

"I suppose the lesson is, he struck too soon."

"Ah," said Speshnev. "At last you have said one tiny thing that impresses me. Not much, but a little. Yes, too early, no follow up, no alternative plan, no alibi, nothing."

"Well, he was outsmarted. His men were captured and I would think tortured and they gave him up. What can be done?"

"What can be done is simple: discipline, patience, coolness, cunning. That is the way wars are won, not by flamboyant stunts."

Machine gun fire. Lots of it. Then individual shots, as, presumably, troops shot at corpses to make certain they stayed corpses.

"You said we would go look."

"It's happening faster than I anticipated. Use your ears. This is the radio of failed revolution. He had no need to assassinate the congressman and had he succeeded, the consequences for all ofus-except him-would have been tragic. There are always consequences. Nothing occurs without consequences. You must face consequences."

"I must be realistic in my thinking, you are saying."

More machine gun fire. A steady, beating roar, then silence.

"Learn this: you must have discipline. You must not strike until you are strong enough. You must withdraw quickly to avoid being caught. You must bleed them and bleed them and bleed them. It is a question of will. Do you have the will? Colorado did not. He had the means, and that was all, and it got him crushed in the stones of his own house."

"I see."

"You were very lucky. You managed to disaffiliate yourself from his plot, and to disconnect yourself from being his pawn. Otherwise you would be in prison now and before the wall tonight. Yet here you sit, drinking coffee."

"I was lucky to have someone so astute looking after me. I will not be so hasty and foolish in the years to come."

"I hope not. But I need a promise. You will not do anything stupid or ill-founded, no matter what anger seizes you. Do you understand? If I am to continue, if our sponsorship is to grow, if your movement is to prosper, it has to be well run. You have charisma, but do you have wisdom? The former without the guidance of the latter is pure anarchy. From now on, you must seek approval. If you do that, you'll be surprised how you can be aided by us."

"I can tell you are experienced."

A last rattle of machine gun fire echoed down the dusty streets.

"What is next is, you go on vacation."

"Vacation! Why, I have work to do. We have a plan already in place, I shouldn't tell you this, for Santiago, although, yes, it needs some polish―"

"You have no work. Don't delude yourself. Don't bore me with fantasy. Forget Santiago. For now, you are too famous. I want you gone. And I do mean gone. You don't tell your wife, you don't tell your three mistresses―"

"Four, actually. The new one, so beautiful."

"— your four mistresses, your three, or is it two, followers. Poof! You are vanished, invisible, as of the moment you leave this cafe."

"But my wife―"

"— will forgive you, as she always has. I am not joking. There will be something like a terror ahead, and some deaths will be whimsical. With your idiocy, you could walk into that in a second. Some people think you have talent, and must be preserved, and that task, melancholy though it be, has fallen to me. So off you go."

"Where shall I go?"

"Don't even tell me. Think of me as a magician. I count three, and when I reach it…you are gone."

The young man had vanished by two.