The Ajax Protocol

CHAPTER 46

It was going on dark by the time the boat stopped moving and the engines shut down. The Cubans brought them up to the deck. The patrol boat had docked at the waterfront of a good-sized city spread out along a broad bay. An ancient fortress of stone dominated the harbor from a high bluff. The salt air smelled of fish and diesel and wood smoke from a cooking fire. It was like being thrust into the middle of a picture postcard. It was pretty but Nick could have done without it.

Guards marched them off the boat and shoved them sprawling into a windowless van that smelled of vomit. Someone slammed the door of the van and locked it. Lamont lay on the floor of the truck, mumbling to himself. Elizabeth and Selena sat next to him.

The van began to move. Selena laid a hand on Lamont's forehead. "He's burning up," she said.

"He dies, I'm going to make someone pay for it," Nick said.

"Where are we?" Ronnie said.

"All I know is that it isn't Havana."

"It's Santiago de Cuba," Selena said. "That's the only other big city in Cuba. The fortress is a famous historical site."

"Wherever they're taking us, we're going to be interrogated," Nick said. The words came out slurred. One side of his face was swollen from the hit he'd taken on the Island Angel.

"We can't tell them who we are," Elizabeth said.

"They'll know who we are. They'll recognize me," Nick said.

He was right. After the incident with the President in Jerusalem, every intelligence agency in the world had his photograph. There were few places he could go without being recognized if any of them were looking.

"They might not," Elizabeth said. "It depends on who's in charge. But if it's the SDE, we're in trouble,"

"SDE?" Selena said.

"Seguridad del Estado, state security," Nick said. "Castro's secret police. They're bad people. The officer on that boat called us spies. We can count on SDE being in charge. They hate Americans."

"This isn't the Cold War anymore," Selena said. "It's a long time since the Bay of Pigs."

"Castro's revolutionary government has a long memory," Nick said. "The whole country is a throwback to the Cold War. Lots of things have gone wrong here and they blame us for all of it. We have to be prepared for anything."

The van came to a sudden stop. They heard doors slam. Then the back door was pulled open.

"Afuera!" a soldier yelled at them.

They started to get out. Rough hands grabbed them and pulled them from the van, threw them down on a cobbled street and tied their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. The ties cut into Nick's wrists. He was hauled to his feet and frog marched at a quick pace toward a grim stone building with barred windows and through a door held open by an unsmiling soldier.

Two men marched him down a flight of stairs and along a dim corridor. They jerked him to a stop before a metal door with a massive lock. One of the men turned a key in the lock and pulled open the door. Someone cut the ties on his hands. Before he could move, a boot in his back sent him flying. The door slammed shut.

The floor was made of rough concrete. His back spasmed from the kick. He sat up and rubbed his wrists, waiting for circulation to return to his hands.

The cell was narrow and old. The only light came from a small, dim window high up on the wall. A stinking hole in one corner was the toilet. There was no place to lie except on the cold floor. Nick listened. Faint sounds came from somewhere in the building. Someone screamed in the distance. The cry trailed off in a babbling wail.

The light faded. He was in darkness.

Something ran over his leg. He pulled back, a reflex. Something scrabbled across the floor in the dark.

Rats. There were rats. Nick made a serious effort to calm himself. At least it isn't spiders, he thought. Too big to be a spider. Maybe.

He sat for a long time in the darkness and listened to unseen things scuttle in his cell.