Havana

Chapter 42

A night of screaming had passed and then another morning. And then things began to happen. Earl watched it. Captain Latavistada and some aides came out of the torture tent, much agitated. They began shouting. Ripples spread through the assembly on the barracks' parade grounds. The soldiers formed up into loose squads, and someone began signaling a fleet of parked trucks to rev up and maneuver into a column. The captain was not quite an idiot; he knew this job could be done better with fifty men than with five hundred so he only took a hundred and fifty, ten trucks full. It took some time to get the trucks loaded, and while all this was going on, Earl sat and smoked a cigarette.

In time he smoked another and another, and then there was still a further delay as the dogs were brought up, and one of them got away, attacked a soldier, and had to be shot, and there was a scene between the civilian dog handler and the officer in charge. Earl had smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes by the time Frenchy returned.

"Okay," he said, "they think they have him. A patrol plane spotted two guys heading for the mountains east of here, maybe ten miles. When the plane came around, the guys broke and ran. It's got to be him, right? Who else would be headed into the mountains and take off like that when spotted? And he's one of the few who hasn't been accounted for."

"Two men," said Earl. "The Russian is still with him."

Frenchy nodded.

"So we ought to get going. We can tag along with the convoy, then break off and move faster on our own."

"Nope," said Earl.

"What?"

"I said 'Nope.' Meaning, no, negative, zero, nothing, no, nope."

"I―"

"See, he knows where he's going, that parade of fools has no idea, and the whole thing just ain't going to work. We throw in with them, we are plumb flat busted before we get going. Okay?"

"Earl, this is not a time to be playing games."

"I ain't playing no games. We ain't going to get a shot at him if we go with these boys. The old fellow running our guy is too smart for that. Tracking won't work. The only thing that will work is interception."

"I don't―"

"You get on that phone to your friend Roger St. Whatever-the-Fuck Evans. You get him on the phone to some prissy-ass boy at Guantanamo named Lieutenant Dan Benning. Dan loves Roger. He thinks Roger's going to get him into your outfit, so he wants to impress Roger. Here's what we want. A U.S. Navy helicopter out of Guantanamo to pick us up in Santiago. Pick a close-by spot, I don't know the town well enough. Tell 'em to bring their best maps of the area-that is, the best nautical maps, with offshore depths indicated. Even our navy's smart enough to have 'em."

"What do you need depths for?"

"Because I'm looking for a spot on the coast where the deep water runs in close to shore."

"Whoa. I am so lost. I am―"

"He ain't just running this boy to noplace. He's got a plan. Best way out is by boat. It's probably set up. They'll go out where it's deepest, because the boat can get in close. It means they don't have to use no dinghy and they won't be hung up on the surface for an hour while they're rowing out."

"How the hell will you know which way they're coming from? They could come through those hills in a hundred different ways."

"I'll probably read it from the maps. But when I get there, we'll take a look-see of the area from the air. We'll figure out how he'll come through. That's where we'll set up. Those Cuban bastards will march him right to us. And we'll do the job they sent us to do and become big heroes and live in nice houses in Washington, D.C. Now get on that phone, sonny. Get on it fast."

There was only a small problem, and that was that Roger wasn't immediately reachable by phone. He wasn't in the office or at the club, or on any of the courts that Frenchy knew about. So, goddammit, where was he?

"That's your job," said Earl. "I'll find the guy. You find your boss. Which one do you think is harder?"

"It's hard to guess where he is. He…he does things, meets people, that's his job. It's unpredictable."

"Fine. It's your goddamn future going up in smoke, not mine. I can always go back to Arkansas and hand out speeding tickets."

But finally Frenchy reached Roger, who neither explained nor apologized. The request was made. The flight was arranged. The pickup took place as planned.

After clearing the city, zipping over the harbor, sliding beyond the ever-thinning slums, the chopper at last broke free to the wild coast east of Santiago. Off to the left, the mountains bulked up cool and green, but here, as they raced along the coast, the land was just hilly, crusted with scrub vegetation, thorn, sawgrass. It was emerald green, but the green of green hell. It must have been 100 degrees out.

The sand of the beach blazed white, the blue Caribbean lapped gently against it. Vibrations, the odor of gasoline, and the roar of the engine filled the air. The bird was a Sikorsky S-55, just the newest thing. It looked like a double-decker Cadillac with a rotor and a boom attached, yet was as agile as a dragonfly, and even built up a good head of speed as it raced east down the coastline.

Earl worked the maps with the young ensign copilot while the crew chief and Frenchy waited below and the pilot kept the bird running hot and straight. Earl and the ensign designated a spot a few miles east of El Brujo, but not quite yet to Siboney, a beach town; that's where the bulge of dark map blue indicating navigable waters arched closest to shore. The chopper eased out of the air, kicking up sand and water as it hovered just beyond to drop off its cargo.

Earl rolled out, the Winchester slung on his back. Frenchy followed. He'd picked up a little M1 carbine somewhere and had a Government Model.45 in a tanker's holster. The two scrunched in the sand and watched as the helicopter rose to altitude, dipped its nose and rotor and headed back to Gitmo, fifty miles farther east. The beach was deserted.

"Now what?" Frenchy asked.

"Now we walk and climb."

"Where?"

"Up there," he said, and pointed. The hills rose steeply, though blanketed in forest. Earl consulted the map, upon which he'd made many notes, read the lines of the peaks a mile beyond and several thousand feet up, made further examinations through binoculars, wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his arm, pulled the hat back low over his eyes.

"There, I'd say," he said, pointing to a certain gap in the crests that seemed no different from any other gap.

"Okay."

"We shoot a compass reading and take off."

"He'll come that way?"

"That's the gamble."

"But just so I can explain to the board that ends my career, why? I mean, they'll need a good laugh."

"Well, he's looking at the same hills right now, but from about six miles inland. And he's probably seen the trucks arrive by this time, seen them soldiers get out and form up and move out. So he knows he's being pursued. He'll track a way over the crest, but it won't be the most obvious, the lowest. He's too smart for that. He'll stay away. But he won't do the highest either, 'cause he'd lose too much time and he's got a schedule to meet. He's already made his arrangements. They can't be changed at this time, 'cause he don't have no walkie-talkie. Whatever they set up, that's what they're committed to."

"Yeah, well, fine, but still I count at least five gaps up there, and that's discounting the highest and the lowest. So it'll be one of those gaps? And you know which one."

"Yeah. See, he has no recon, so he doesn't know what's on this side. You have to see it as he sees it, and interpret it from the knowledge that he has. He has no idea that one, over there, leads to a natural fold in the earth, and that going down it would be much easier. The vegetation ain't so heavy either. No, way he's looking, he'll take the one that's the closest thing to a straight line from where he is, yet ain't obviously, outstandingly low. So that would be the one I have selected."

"Man, I hope you're right."

"Oh, I'm right. The question is, are you tough enough to make it? We've got a climb to make, double-time."

"Yeah, I'm fine. You know why? All that goddamn tennis. I'm in the best shape of my life. Boola-boola. Let's go make a big noise."