The Hamlet Warning (8 page)

Chapter 9

Minus
9
Days
,
22
:
13
Hours

After two nights of fighting, El Jefe’s generals were congratulating themselves, confident that they had defeated Ramón thoroughly in his first efforts. Loomis thought otherwise. He granted that by day Santo Domingo remained deceptively normal. Unless one happened to notice the number of army vehicles at the major intersections, the dramatic decline in the number of tourists on the streets, and a subtle, apprehensive air throughout the city, he might not know that he was in the midst of a revolution.

But at night the streets became another world, inhabited for the most part only by soldiers, policemen, snipers, and elusive terrorists armed with explosives. El Jefe and his generals put into effect a plan for “safe corridors” along El Conde east and west, and along Duarte north and south. These corridors were heavily defended day and night. Consequently most of the sniping and hit-and-run battles took place along them. More than two dozen soldiers or
Policía
nacional
were killed each night, along with a few unlucky civilians who happened to get in the way. The hospitals were swamped with wounded. 

The generals insisted that Ramón had failed in his primary objectives — the kidnaping or killing of the De la Torre family and the establishment of a foothold in Santo Domingo. Although Ramón held essential areas in the northern provinces, they believed that the revolution had entered a stage of stalemate that in time would defeat Ramón, who had fewer resources.

Loomis offered a different assessment. He argued that despite the setback with the De la Torre family, Ramón had succeeded in his basic objectives. The family’s narrow escape brought worldwide attention to Ramón’s revolution. He held vital regions and warehouses in the nation’s breadbasket. Loomis argued that the stalemate would benefit Ramón, not the regime.

He pointed out the factors in Ramón’s favor: the more military pressure Ramón forced the administration to apply in the streets, the more resentment and resistance would be created among the people. Overnight, most tourists had fled Santo Domingo, inspired by a satchel bomb in the lobby of the Hotel Embajador. Two tourists and four hotel employees had been killed. There now were few new arrivals. The quick-divorce flights from New York had been suspended. The country simply could not endure the economic loss indefinitely. Loomis had intercepted messages to Ramón from several leftist countries pledging recognition and support for the revolutionary government when the proper moment arrived. And, if further proof were needed, there was the testimony of the few rebels captured. All insisted they were held back from fighting in the capital by Ramón’s standing orders. This information made sense to Loomis. Ramón didn’t want his followers to dash into the streets to die foolish deaths. His plan clearly called for control in the north and strong pressure against the capital, never allowing a night to pass without a carefully measured battle or two, and at least one devastating explosion in a place considered well protected. 

Harassment was Ramón’s game, Loomis argued. And Ramón was winning. His losses were negligible, and his forces were growing daily while morale among the government troops was dropping.

El Jefe listened to Loomis, but he found the argument of his generals more convincing. He boiled down his doubts to one question: “If Ramón’s so strong, why doesn’t he come out and fight?”

Loomis repeated his belief that Ramón was gathering his strength until the right time.

El Jefe couldn’t accept the theory. He only know of one way to run a revolution. His way.

“If he is certain of winning, now is the time for him to strike,” he said. “He’d win more troops over by doing it. He
already
has more than I did when I started. If he’d declare himself, take a stand, they’d fall out of the trees, spring up out of the ground. No. Inaction kills revolutions. Ramón is too inactive.”

Loomis gave up on the argument. He was confident that developments soon would prove him right.

*

María Elena continued to ignore Loomis’s existence, a fact he found unsettling.

On the morning after the rescue, the
palacio
was besieged by more than a score of reporters who had flown in overnight to cover the revolution. They wanted to interview María Elena. She refused to see them. At El Jefe’s request, Loomis went to the De la Torre quarters that afternoon to urge María Elena to cooperate. El Jefe wished to prove to the world that María Elena was safe and that she was an honored
palacio
guest, not a political prisoner thrown into some dungeon.

Loomis talked to her briefly in a small parlor in the family quarters. She came into the room pale, distraught, obviously still shaken from the battle of a few hours before. Yet she faced Loomis with the same defiance she had shown in Santiago. She did not sit or offer Loomis a chair. “I see no need to discuss the matter,” she said. “I haven’t talked to the press in two years. There’s no reason to do so now.”

Her delicate, soft features made her seem vulnerable, belying her firm stance and strong words. Loomis had an almost overwhelming impulse to put his arms around her, to give her whatever assurance he could. He was irritated by the inclination. He told himself that he was only intrigued and fascinated by the mystery of her. He knew, perhaps better than anyone, that impulses arising from the emotions are dangerous and that affairs of the heart are the worst kind. Surely, he had learned that lesson by now.

“El Jefe places no restrictions on you,” he said. “You can tell them anything you want.”

Her eyes blazed up at him in anger. “
What
could I tell them? That I’m a political prisoner? Held here against my will? No, thank you. I won’t give Ramón that satisfaction, even if it’s what my uncle deserves.”

“El Jefe has only your best interest at heart,” he told her.

“He had no right to bring us here,” she said. “We were perfectly safe in Santiago.”

Loomis spoke with some heat of his own. “You were safe in Santiago only because your uncle kept you and your whole family under discreet but close surveillance. Three companies of troops were assigned to guard you. That was their sole duty. They were in constant radio contact, literally around the corner. Believe me, lady, there are plenty of reasons for El Jefe to be concerned for your safety. And may I remind you that a lot of good men died last night because of those reasons.”

Her eyes wavered for the first time. Loomis saw her hands tremble and instantly regretted he had been so blunt.

“Well, anyway, I will not talk to the reporters,” she said. 

Loomis made one last effort. “It would only take a minute,” he said. “They are just men doing their job.”

She gave him one final, scornful look. “There are already too many people around here operating on that philosophy,” she said. She turned and walked out of the room.

Loomis faced the reporters alone. He described the night’s assault, placing heavy importance on the heroic delaying tactics of Rodríguez and his men and on Bedoya and the men in the gunship.

That evening, he dressed as usual and went down to dinner. El Jefe seldom left the
palacio
, and his social life centered around quiet evenings with small gatherings invited in for drinks, dinner, and a movie. The guest lists varied — senators and ambassadors, newspaper publishers and plantation owners, his generals and advisers, and, always, their wives. El Jefe had made plain to the
palacio
staff that Loomis held a standing invitation. Loomis only had to advise the social secretary each day of his intentions. He usually accepted. The food was better than most available elsewhere in the country. And he liked the company, most of the time.

Loomis also enjoyed the dinners in that they revealed a side of El Jefe he otherwise wouldn’t have known existed. The old warrior apparently was starved for feminine attentions. There were stories that when El Jefe’s wife died young, he had grieved for years and vowed never to remarry. In his quiet, genteel attitude toward the women, El Jefe showed a debonair, suave self that seldom surfaced in other surroundings.

By the time Loomis entered the lounge, a dozen or more guests had arrived. He nodded greetings to a general and his wife, to an industrialist and his daughter, and moved toward the bar. Drink in hand, he turned to find María Elena de la Torre staring at him. She was standing alone in a corner of the room. Her gaze dropped to his shoes, then slowly and frankly sized him up, conveying as clearly as spoken words her shock and disbelief that he would dare to be in dinner jacket, presuming to mix with civilized people as an equal.

Then she pointedly turned away.

Throughout the cocktail hour, Loomis couldn’t keep from stealing glances in her direction. She was wearing an understated black sheath, V-necked, with a white linen jacket. Her long dark hair was loose. An ivory cameo necklace was the only trace of jewelry. Loomis was convinced he had never seen a lovelier woman in his life.

At dinner he was seated next to a senator’s wife, the daughter of a prominent Dominican family. Educated in Europe, she was extremely well read. Loomis had discussed books with her many times, so they naturally fell into a lively comparison of the relative value of Russian and American authors. Loomis was expounding his theory that Russian writers, from Dostoevsky to Solzhenitsyn, had profited artistically from their harsher experiences — intellectual rebellion, revolution and warfare, arrest, penal servitude, and their eventual return, older and infinitely wiser, to a troubled society. In mid-sentence he looked up and caught María Elena watching him intently. She quickly looked away. Yet Loomis sensed that she continued to listen to the conversation.

The disturbing eye duel persisted through dinner. Loomis would feel her gaze on him. But when he turned casually in her direction, she would be looking elsewhere. By the end of the evening, concluded with the screening of a French comedy, Loomis was hardly aware of anything other than María Elena. After the guests left, and as the De la Torres walked toward their quarters, María Elena paused in the doorway and gave him one last, lingering glance. Loomis could read no meaning on her face.

He found the whole evening disconcerting.

The next night, annoyed with himself over his foolish eagerness, he went down early for cocktails. After taking a drink from the bar, he turned and walked straight across the room to María Elena, who regarded his approach without a sign of expression.

“I’m sorry, but I live here, too,” he said. “You’ll just have to put up with seeing me around.”

He was rewarded with the barest hint of a smile. “You seem absolutely naked without your guns,” she said. “And I’ve been wondering where you learned to read. I thought you more the simian type.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Loomis said. “You really haven’t seen any of them yet.”

Her eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “A film critic, a gunman, and an authority on world literature. What next?”

“I play a mean game of tennis. You care to try me?”

“How do you know I play tennis at all?”

“I told you I was full of surprises.”

“My security file,” she guessed, accurately. She seemed disturbed by the thought. “What else is in there?”

“You’re full of surprises, too,” he said.

She laughed, then. A rich, throaty laugh that struck Loomis as pure music.

“You should laugh more,” he said. “It does things to your eyes.”

“Political prisoners don’t laugh much,” she said.

He gestured with his drink to their surroundings, the huge crystal chandeliers, heavily framed oil paintings, the wide brocade draperies, marbled floors, and elegantly gowned and jeweled women. “You’ll have to admit that this beats those Nazi ovens.”

She made a face. “As long as I’m penned up, I’d just as soon be on bread and water. Two days in this place, and I’m already half crazy.”

“Crazy enough to play tennis with me?”

She laughed again. “All right,” she said. “When?”

“Morning is best. The
palacio
courts are in shade. Eight o’clock?” 

“Eight o’clock,” she said.

El Jefe led the way into the dining room. María Elena was seated to Loomis’s left. She remained strangely quiet through the early portion of the dinner. Across the table, De la Torre, his wife, and Raul also seemed subdued. From the strained atmosphere, Loomis assumed that a confrontation had occurred between El Jefe and the family over their enforced residence.

El Jefe seemed to be making an effort toward amends. He was especially attentive to Juana and María Elena, recommending certain dishes, making sure their every need was met.

The conversation centered around El Jefe at the head of the table, ranging from the latest American and Italian films to the sad way tourists were ruining the best places in Spain and the south of France. News of the destruction of an airliner by terrorists in the Middle East was discussed, leading El Jefe to turn the topic of conversation to Dominican politics — usually a taboo subject at
palacio
dinners.

“I don’t know the solution to this terrorism,” he said. “There’s only small consolation in the fact that we are not the only country in the world having such difficulties. I must confess that I don’t understand what is in the terrorist’s mind. I simply don’t know how to deal with him.”