Part 14 (2/2)

It was a long corridor. Before me lay a dead end. Behind, toward the stairs, was the only hope of a hiding place-a narrow offshoot from the main hallway which ended, probably, in a small room. I gauged the sound of the footsteps, wondering if I had time to make it to the intersecting hall. And knew, then, that I didn't.

First the shadow moved around the corner, then the man himself-a burly Cuban soldier with an AK-47 in hand. He was light-skinned and broad-faced with pockmarks and a mustache. He looked at me, surprised. And I knew I had only one chance. I lifted my arms, gesturing as if lost. I smiled. Tried to look friendly. See the stupid American? Just took a wrong turn, that's all, buddy. Just lead me toward the bar and we'll both be happy.

But it didn't work. I heard the metallic click as he flicked off the safety of the automatic, and he came at me in a weighty jog.

My mind scanned frantically, searching for some way to take him. If I had a knife, I could try a quick throw, then roll for my life, hoping for a lucky hit. But the stout Gerber was folded away in its belt holder, and even if I made a try for it the 7.62mm slugs would cut me in two like something meant for the toaster.

Face it, MacMorgan. Your luck's run out. You knew the time would come; knew before the first mission that vultures don't give without finally taking. And you always lied to yourself, told yourself that you'd accept it willingly-told yourself that you had loved well and lived fully, and had killed vultures enough to warrant the price of your own frail heartbeat. So why the sweaty palms, the hot weight upon your chest? Because you will never be ready. No one ever is. . . .

But my luck hadn't run out.

I had the unexpected good fortune of falling in with a kindred spirit, a copper-haired, red-bearded, crazy-eyed Irishman by the name of Westy O'Davis.

And when the soldier went trotting by the narrow intersection of corridors, O'Davis stepped out with a blind-sided overhand right that allowed the bulky Cuban one staggering step before he went down like a sack of wet bones.

O'Davis stepped out touching his knuckles gingerly. He looked at me and grinned. ” 'Tis an interestin' life you live, brother MacMorgan.”

I exhaled heavily. ”Next time I tell you to stay out of my business, O'Davis, give me a swift kick in the a.s.s, okay?”

”Pleasure, Yank. You're a man who needs watchin', I'm thinkin'.”

Behind me, the m.u.f.fled voice of Androsa's captors were louder now, closer to the door. I long-stepped it down the hall and helped the big Irishman drag the body of the soldier into the little storage room. I heard the cabin door open, and then voices. They were coming our way. The storage room was crammed with boxes, but we forced our way in, pulling the door halfway shut behind us. It smelled of mold and diesel, and overhead bare steampipes rattled and clanked with uneven pressure.

Waiting, I reached down and touched the soldier's neck. Fast-pulse. Steady.

”Dead?”

I shook my head. ”No.”

O'Davis looked surprised but said nothing.

We watched them go by: Androsa and two men. One wore the uniform of a common Cuban soldier. He had the woman's arm bent up behind her, and her mouth was a thin line of pain. Below the small head wound she had gotten back on Storm Nest was a larger swelling, fresh and already turning the soft cheek purple. The other Cuban was a hugely fat man, gaudy general's uniform draped over him like a tent. His face was a ma.s.s of rolling jowls and sweat, and his narrow pig eyes wavered only once: Androsa struggled as they pa.s.sed before us, and he turned only just enough to slap her savagely across the face.

I felt the hand of Westy O'Davis holding my shoulder tightly, and heard him whisper in my ear, ”Easy, mate. Easy . . .”

In the bright anger of that moment, detail stood out sharp and vivid, focusing through eyes and etched upon brain: tiny brave raven-haired woman locked between the bulk of the two soldiers. She wore an orange blouse. It brought out the deep tan and whitened the clenched teeth. Her blouse was ripped slightly at the collar, and two b.u.t.tons were missing, knots of white thread twisted. She wore faded jeans and jogging shoes that squeaked against the linoleum as they forced her along, and the beautiful Spanish-Indian face masked its fear with a stoic hatred.

When their footsteps disappeared up the stairs, we shut the storage-room door behind us and stepped out into the corridor.

”This is where you get off, O'Davis. Things are gonna start to get real nasty from here on out.”

He tugged at his red beard, keeping a close eye on the corridors as we walked along. ”Like I said, Yank-you look like a man who needs lookin' after. Take the way you're walkin', fer instance. Too fast, mate-way too fast. Gotta walk outta here like we just bought this b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+p.”

I looked at him, suspicious. ”You sound like you've done this sort of thing before.”

He grinned, still casting glances before and behind us. ”Ah! I have, I have-an' usually escapin' from an angry husband, I might add. But when I visit you in Key West I'll tell you all about that. Now it's the la.s.s we're after-and a fine-lookin' woman, too.”

”So you're the one who understands Spanish. Tell me what they were saying.”

”Your lady wasn't sayin' much. Swearin' some-an' a talented job of it, too. The fat chap-hoggish fella, weren't he?-he mentioned Pier Two. Expect they're headed that way.”

”Anything else?”

He thought for a moment. ”Aye. There is. Got the name of the fat fellow. Soldier used it once. d.a.m.n general he is-guess you'd have to be a general to be that fat in a country as poor as this. Strange name, like a bird. Called him General Halcn. Means 'Hawk' in Spanish. . . .”

15.

They left in one of the small twin-engine patrol skiffs. It was about twenty-one feet long, made of wood and painted gray, with enough muscle in the inboard-outboards to blast it across the calm harbor like a shaft of pale light. Top speed probably sixty to sixty-five mph. It was patrol boat number 13-one of only two I had seen loaded with soldiers flying around Mariel. In a craft that fast, there was no way we could keep an eye on them. So I had to take O'Davis's word that they were headed for Pier Two.

The two of us went lumbering back through the bar, and outside, our faces were masks of relaxed confidence. Soldiers rushed past us without hesitating. A couple of second-place finishers in the fight lay on the deck groaning. As O'Davis said, confident people don't draw attention. And he was right about our taxi driver, too-he still sat in the skiff waiting for us, patient as an old horse.

It was sunset. A scarlet dusk with the sun's rays lancing through the acid factory smog. The rays were set apart in shafts of ruddy light, hitting boats and crimson clouds and the castle hulk of the stone Naval Academy like stage lights.

In his guttural Spanish, O'Davis whipped our driver into reluctant action. He steered us through the maze of shrimp boats, cruisers, and ratty commercial trawlers at a stately twenty knots, the displacement wake leaving the waiting boats rolling behind us. There was nothing I could do but think and wait. Westy tugged at his red beard and hummed some Gaelic tune, tum-de-dum dum dum, while I tried to formulate a plan. Once we got to Pier Two, there wasn't much I could do. Or needed to do. I had to find out where they were keeping the woman. It would be better if they had stuck her on a bus and taken her into Havana, the Triton Hotel maybe. I knew my way around Havana-it couldn't be changed that much even in twenty years. And once I knew where she was, I could plan my rescue. I had the explosives aboard Sniper. A charge here, a charge there. Get the Castro Cubans confused, get them running. And there was always my crossbow. Silent and deadly. I felt the old coldness move through me, felt the a.s.siduous warrior-man that I had once been-and would always be-take control of my mind. All I needed was data. There would be no indecision now. Reanchor at the most secluded spot in the harbor I could find, and then . . .

I felt the Irishman staring at me. There was a studious look of reevaluation on his face; he looked like a kid who just discovered the garter snake in his hands was really a cottonmouth. He said, ”I doon't know what's on yer mind, Yank-but whatever it is, I'm glad I'm ta be on your side. Them sea-colored eyes of yours are a wee bit too revealin'. Do me a favor now, an' doon't let the soldiers catch you lookin' like you jest were. They'll throw us both in the cooler without a fare-thee-well.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. ”You're right, O'Davis. I was just thinking about the way . . . the way they were treating that woman.”

”Aye, I know what ya mean. It brings out the blackness in us, mate. Strange, in a way. You come ta hate somethin' so much that, in time, you become the thing you hate. A dictators.h.i.+p is a government of the frightened and the savage. An' from the looks of ya, Yank, you aren't a man to become frightened. Now look over there, will ya?”

He pointed to an expanse of concrete wharf where there were cement-block buildings. Boats crowded around the wharf, and there were big fuel-tank cylinders by a wooden machine shop at the end of a short ca.n.a.l. But mostly there were people: three long lines of weary-looking men, women, and children, heads down, shuffling and somber in the growing darkness. The wharf was heavily guarded. A searchlight and a machine gun were mounted atop the highest building, and soldiers brushed by the line of refugees as if they did not exist.

O'Davis made a sweeping gesture with his big hands. ”That's what this is all about, Yank. That's Pier Three-where they herd the refugees onto boats. Now look at them poor folk there, will ya? They're the frightened in the camp of the savages. An' the head savage is round here someplace-that ya kin bet on.”

I was surprised. ”Castro?”

He shrugged. ”He's a bit of a dark prince, ya know. Imagine this is the sort a thing 'e wouldn't miss seein'. Got no permanent presidential palace or anything like that-not his style. Besides, he's gotta keep movin' or his own people would lay in wait for him, an' a.s.sa.s.sinate him, I expect. What I'm sayin', Yank, is we gotta be very careful. With the big man around, the soldiers are not goin' to take any chances of lettin' things get outta hand-if ya see what I mean.”

”I see,” I said. ”And that's exactly why you're going back to that pretty schooner of yours once you introduce me to Pier Two.”

”Oh, I will, I will. After I've had me a beer or two. I'm not goin' to let a big ugly brute like yerself get me inta trouble. Are ya thinkin' me a fool?”

I sneered at his sly grin. ”I suppose you're going to promise me again, huh?”

”Ah do, ah do-on the grave of me very own mother.”

Pier Two was a dirt strip sided by canvas booths where bored Cuban vendors sold beer and cigars, T-s.h.i.+rts, fighting c.o.c.ks, beans and yellow rice, and moldy slabs of bacon s.h.i.+ny with flies. A string of bare two-hundred-watt bulbs threw a carnival glare on the Cuban-Americans who stood on the dirt road drinking beer and s.h.i.+elding themselves from the guards with a careful hilarity. It was north of Pier Three by about a half mile, located between the water and the belching stacks of the power plant, and chain-link fence topped by barbed wire enclosed the area. Our driver nosed up to the makes.h.i.+ft plywood dock, cracked his propeller on the rocks which surrounded the dock, and we left him cursing the skiff with subdued emotion.

”Well, well, well,” O'Davis said, his sarcasm taking grand form. ”I wonder what the poor folks back in the U.S.A. are doin' tonight, Yank.”

”Pretty place, no doubt about that,” I said. ”Appropriately decorated, too.”

The big Irishman saw what I was pointing at-a swollen rat, oil-covered, lifting and falling in the water wash around the docks.

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