Cuba (26 page)

someday would again.

STEPHEN COONTS

The Cubans watched the American diplomats very

closely, so this officer had no contact with the

agency’s covert intelligence apparatus on the

island. He kept himself busy watching television,

listening to radio, collecting Cuban newspapers

and publications and writing reports based on what

he saw, heard, and read. His diplomatic

colleagues were congenial and the life was

semi-monastic, which he found agreeable.

The man who ran the covert side of the business, was

a Cuban who had never set foot inside the

U.s. Interest Section and probably never would.

He owned a wholesale seafood operation on the

waterfront in Havana Harbor. Every day the fishing

boats brought their catch to his pier and every day he

purchased what he thought he could sell. Both the

price he paid and the price he charged were

set by the government: had there not been a black

market for fish he would have starved.

The cover was decent A Cuban fishing boat could

meet an Americaneaboat or submarine at sea,

passing messages or material in either direction.

The spymaster’s delivery trucks visited every

restaurant, casino, and embassy in the capital.

With people and things coming and going, the old man could keep his

pulse on Cuba. He was called el Tiburon,

the Shark.

William Henry Chance had no intention of ever

meeting el Tiburon unless disaster was staring him in the

face. The CIA man in the American Interest

Section was another matter.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Chance. Delighted to meet you,

of course.”

Dr. Bouchard shook hands with Chance and Carmellini

as he peered at them over the top of his glasses.

He led them down several narrow hallways to a

tiny, windowless cubicle in the bowels of the building.

“Sorry to say, mis is the office. Security,

you know. They used to store food in here. Damp but

quiet”…He took a stack of newspapers off the

only guest chair and moved

them to Ms desk, extracted a folding

metal chair from behind his desk and unfolded it for

Carmellini, then settled into his ctfair.

The knees of all three men almost touched. “So how

are you enjoying Cuba?”

“Fascinatingea”…Chance muttered.

“Yes, isn’t it”…”…Professor Bouchard beamed

complacently. “Six years I’ve been here, and I

don’t ever want to leave. I don’t miss the

snow, I’ll tell you, or the faculty

politics, feuds, dog-eat-dog jealousy over

department budgetsthank God I’m-out of all that.”

Chance nodded, unwilling to get to the point.

“We met once or twice before, I thinkea”…Chance

reminded Bouchard.

“Oh, yes, I do seem to recall… $’e

They discussed it.

“My associate, Mr. Carmellini. I don’t

think you’ve met him.”

The pleasantries over at last, Chance edged around

to business. “You have a few items in your storeroom

that we need to borrow, I believe.”

“Certainly. The inventory is in the safe. If you

gentlemen will step into the hall for a moment…”

They did so and he fiddled with the dial of the safe.

When he had the file he wanted and the safe

was closed and locked, he seated himself again at his

desk. Chance sat back down. Carmellini

remained standing.

“This is the inventory, I’m sure. Yes. What

is it you want?”

“Two Rugers with silencers, ammunition, two

garroting wires, two fighting knives, a dozen

disposable latex gloves, two self-contained gas

masks”

“Let’s see…”…The professor ran his finger

down the list. “Guns, check. Ammo, okay.

Knives … knives … oh, here they are.

Wires, garroting, check … gloves …

masks. Yes, I think we have what you need. Do you

want to take this stuff with you?”

“I think so. In a suitcase of some kind, if you

can manage that.”

“I’ll have to give you one of mine. You can’return

it or pay me for it, as you prefer.”

“We’ll try to return it.”

“That’s best, I think. The accounting department is so

difficult about expense accounts. You gentlemen

wait here; I’ll see what I can do. While

you’re waiting, would you like a cup of coffee, a soft

drink?”

“I’m fine caret Chance said.

“Don’t worry about meea”…Carmellini said.

“This will take a few minutesea”…the professor

advised. “Would you like to wait in the courtyard? The

flora there is my hobby, and the eagle from the Maine

Memorial is a rare work of art.”

“That’s the big eagle over the doorway?”

“Yes. After the revolution Castro demanded it

be’removed from the Maine Memorial. That was about the

time he announced he was a communist, before the Bay of

Pigs. Difficult era for everyone.”

“Ah, yes. We’ll find our way.”

“I’ll look for you in the courtyard when I have your

itemsea”…the professor said, and scurried off. ,

The eagle was huge. “Quite a work of

artea”…Carmellini muttered.

“Too big for youea”…Chance said.

“I don’t know about thatea”…Carmellini replied, and

glanced around to see if there was any way to get the thing

out of the mission ground with a crane. “Run a mobile

construction crane up to the wall, send a man down

on the hook, haul it out. I could snatch it and be

gone in six or seven minutes.”

Chance didn’t even bother to frown. Carmellini had

a habit of chaffing him in an unoffensive

way; protest would be futile.

‘The professor is the most incurious man I’ve

ever met,”

Tommy Carmellini said conversationally a few

minutes later.

“He doesn’t want to know too much.”

“He doesn’t want to know anythingea”…Carmellini

protested. “People who don’t ask obvious questions

worry me.”

“Hmmmea”…sd William Henry Chance, who

didn’t seem at all worried.

The professor came looking for them a half hour

later. After he had scrawled an illegible

signature on a detailed custody card, Chance

offered the professor a photo of a man that his

surveillance team had taken outside the

University of Havana science building. The man

was in his sixties, slightly overweight, balding,

and looking at the camera almost full face. He

didn’t see the camera that took the picture, of

course, since it was in the van.

“If you could, Professor, I would like you to send this

to Washington. I want to know who this man is.”

“American”…”…Dr. Bouchard asked, accepting the

photo and glancing at it.

“I have no idea, sir. We’ve seen him around here

and there and wondered who he might be. Would you have the

folks in Langley try to find out?”

“Of courseea”…the professor said, and put the photo

in his pocket.

Toad Tarkington was in a rare foul mood. He

snapped at the yeomen, snarled at the flag

lieutenant, fumed over the message board, and

generally glowered at anyone who looked his way.

This state of affairs could not go on, of course, so

he went to Ms stateroom, put on his running

togs, and went on deck for a jog. The tropical

sea air, the long foaming rollers, the puffy

clouds running on the breeze, the deep blue of the

Caribbeanall of it made his mood more foul.

None of the leads to find the

Colon

had borne fruit. The ship was still missing, the

captain and crew had stayed

aboard her all the time she was tied to the pier in

Guantanamo, the gloom seemed impenetrable. The

air wing was still searching, but as yet, nothing! And of

course the temperature of the rhetoric coming from the

White House and Pentagon was rising by the hour.

Toad was jogging aft from the bow when a

petty officer from the admiral’s staff flagged him

down. “The AI’S have a photo of the Coston!”

“Where is she?”

“Aground on a reef off the north shore of

Cuba:”

Toddad bolte.d for the hatchway that led down into the

ship, the petty officer right behind.

The photo was of the

Colon,

all right. The ship looked as if it were wedged on some

rocks, almost as if it grounded during a high tide.

Now the tide was out and the

Colon

was marooned.

“When was this picture taken”…”…Toad demanded of the

air intelligence officers.

“Yesterday.”

“And no one recognized it?”

“Not until today.”.

Toad growled. “Have you passed this to the admiral?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Show me the location.”

The AI pinpointed the location on a sectional

chart.

Toad called Jake Grafton. “I

want to see that shipea”…Jake said. “As soon as

possible. We’ll take an F-14 with a TARPS

package.”…TARPS stood for tactical air

reconnaissance pods. Each pod contained two

cameras and an infrared line scanner.

Cuba is an island surrounded by islands, over

sixteen hundred of them. Most of the islands on

Cuba’s north shore are small, uninhabited,

rocky bits of tropical paradise, or so they

looked to Jake Grafton, who saw them through

binoculars from the front seat of an F-14.

The ship was about three miles offshore, stranded on

rocks that just pierced the surface of the sea. The

breaking surf looked white through the binoculars.

The freighter was plainly visible, listing slightly.

Some of the weapons containers were visible on the main

deck. Jake checked the photo in his lap, which was

taken yesterday by an FirstA-18 Hornet pilot

with a hand-held 35-mm camera. Yep, the containers

visible in the photo were still in place aboard the ship.

Although the Cubans claimed a twelve-mile

territorial limit, the United States

recognized but three.

Nuestra Senora de Colon

was stranded on a reef in international

waters, the AI’S assured Jake. They had

checked with the State Department, they said.

South of the ship was the entrance to Bahia de Nipe,

a decent-sized shallow-water bay.

Was the ship on her way into the bay when she went on

the rocks?

Jake was making his initial photo passes a

mile to seaward of the

Colon.

In the event the Cubans chose to send interceptors

to chase him away, he had a flight of F-14’s

ten miles farther north providing cover. Above them

was an EA-6But Prowler electronic warfare

airplane, listening forand ready to jam any Cuban

fire-control radar that came on the air. According to the

electronic warfare detection gear in Jake’s

cockpit, he was being painted only by search radars.

That, as he well knew, could change any second.

He had just completed a photo pass from west to east

and was turning to seaward when the E-2 came on the

air. “Battlestar One, we have company. Bogey

twenty miles west of your posit, heading your way.

Looks like a Fulcrum.”…A Fulcrum was a

MiGo-29.

Jake keyed his radio mike. “Roger

that. I’ll make one more photo pass before he gets

here, then exit the area to the north.”

He tucked the nose down and let the Tomcat

accelerate. The plane was alive in his handthe

descending jet bumped and bounced in the swirling,

roiling tropical air

under the puffy cumulus clouds drifting along on the

trade wind.

“Cameras are on and runningea”…Toad Tarkington

said from the back seat.

Staying just outside the three-mile limit, Jake

flew past the stern of the stranded freighter one more time,

which meant he was probably getting fine views of

her stern and oblique views of her flanks.

“Since we’re here …”…he muttered, and dropped

a wing as he eased the stick and throttles forward.

In the back seat, Toad Tarkington was monitoring

the recon package. “I sure am glad we’re

staying out of Cuban airspaceea”…he told Jake.

“I’d feel a lot more comfortable outside the

twelve-mile limit, but that’s asking too much of this

technology. A ship sitting on the rocks like this,

looks like a setup to me. They’re looking

to mousetrap some dude flying by snapping pictures

and perforate his heinie.”

“Yeahea”…sd Jake Grafton, and leveled off at

a hundred feet above the water. He had the

F-14 flying parallel with the axis of the ship,

offset with the ship to his right since the recon

package was mounted under his right engine.

“Got the cameras and IR scanner going?”

“Oh, yeah, looking real goodea”…Toad said, just as

he picked up the seascape passing by the canopy with

his peripheral vision. He looked right just in time

to see the freighter flash by, then Jake

Grafton pulled back on the stick and lit the

afterburners. The Tomcat’s nose rose to sixty

degrees above the horizon and it went up like a

rocket, corkscrewing back toward the ocean, as the

E-2 Hawkeye radar operator called the

bogey for the Showtime F-14 crews who were

Jake’s armed guard. Both RIO’S said they had