"You are gusanos-worms!" he told them in Spanish. "You are betrayers!"
The men looked at one another, abashed.
Good, good, thought Fidel. He would shame them as he did the thousand-some invaders of 1961.
He had had those ones assembled in the Palencio de los Desportes-the Sports Palace. For four days he had lectured them, browbeaten them, humiliated them as the cameras rolled, recording every drop of traitorous sweat. They had wept. They had begged for forgiveness. And in the end, they had spontaneously stood up and given him a standing ovation.
Here, he would do all this again. Since there were only five survivors, it would take but the afternoon.
"You have allowed yourself to be puppets!" he continued. "Puppets of the imperialistas! You are men without conscience, lacking even a single ball between your spineless legs!"
They winced at his lashing words. The fear was in their eyes. Pleased, he pressed on.
"You have come to the paradise of the Caribbean to despoil it. Or so you parasites thought. Instead, you have tasted the bitter gall of your defeat on the sweet Socialist sands of our beach. You are fools and lackies of fools!"
A stiff-backed Cuban major cleared his throat. Annoyed, the Leader of the Revolution glowered at him. He paused and then nodded, giving the man leave to speak.
"Comrade Fidel. These men . . ."
"Spit it out!" he snapped.
"They do not speak Spanish," the major said. "We have already determined this."
The President's right eyebrow crawled upward. His left, hesitating, joined it.
He whirled on the five nervous prisoners.
"This is true?" he howled in English. "You do not speak the mother tongue of your fathers?"
They shook their heads furiously. At least they remain scared, Fidel thought.
"What manner of Cubans are these, who storm our shores now?" he raged.
One of the invaders spoke.
"Second-generation ones," he said simply.
El Lider Maximo blinked. His mouth went slack, making his rangy gray beard bunch up on his olivedrab chest like a cloud of steel wool dashing itself against a mountainside.
"Madre!" he grumbled. "I will waste no time with such as you!" he snapped, knowing his English was not equal to a five-hour harangue. Besides, the language was not nearly eloquent enough for his purposes. "Tell me who has sent you here!"
The men remained stonily silent. For the first time, he noticed under their camouflage paint how young they were. Mere boys, it seemed.
"Tell me!" he roared.
The mouths of the prisoners thinned resolutely.
"Have them tortured, and call me when they are prepared to speak," he snapped, storming from the beach.
It is not like the old days, he thought huffily as he left the shack.
It took less than twenty minutes. His cultural minister employed the Russian technique known as "making a snake." It was as simple as it was effective.
They took the strongest of the prisoners, held him down, and before the eyes of the others, split his tongue down the middle with a sharp knife.
The blood flowed alarmingly, in crimson rivers.
The others found their tongues, and began to speak rivers of words.
The Maximum Leader faced them triumphantly.
"I knew you lacked balls, but I did not think you were also bereft of spines," he spat. Glaring at one, he added, "You! Who engineered this cowardly, incursion?"
"Uncle Sam."
El Presidente, standing straight up, almost staggered at the news. He blinked. He could scarcely believe it. Had the Americanos become so bold? Always before, they had insulated themselves from blame by layers of proxy commanders.
He turned to the next in line. "What do you say? Speak your leader's name!"
"Uncle Sam."
And so it was on down the line.
"Uncle Sam."
"Uncle Sam."
Even the maimed tongueless one gurgled out two bloody words that sounded like "Uncle Sam."
This came as such a surprise that the grizzled President of Cuba let his cigar fall, hissing, into the pool of blood at his feet.
He lifted a balled fist to the height of his shoulder, and shook it furiously.
"Then it is war! At long last, it is war!"
Chapter 2
His name was Remo, and he was trying to order duckling.
The room service manager of the Fontainebleau Hotel, overlooking Miami Beach, was graciously apologetic.
"I am sorry sir, but the duck is unavailable."
"Uh-oh," said Remo, his strong face warping in concern.
"Sir?"
"My roommate isn't going to like this."
"Please convey to your roommate our deepest apologies," the room service manager said in an unctuous tone, "but as I said, the duck is unavailable this evening. "
"This is terrible," Remo said.
"From time to time there is a problem with our suppliers. It cannot be foreseen, and there is nothing we can do about this."
"You see, I have a sneaking suspicion my roommate picked this hotel expressly because he liked the duck," Remo said.
The room service manager's voice grew solicitous. "I shall so inform the head chef. I'm certain he will be gratified."
"You see, normally we don't check into a hotel a second time. We kinda like to move around, experience new things. But we were here a few months back and my roommate ordered the duck. Now here we are back at your nice hotel; and now no duck."
"I can assure you it will be on the menu by the end of the week. May I suggest our beef Stroganoff?"
"You can suggest all you want," Remo countered, "but my roommate and I are allergic to beef."
"A pity."
"We eat beef and we go into toxic shock."
"We would not want that. Would you prefer the lamb-kabobs?"
"Lamb's greasy."
"Not our lamb."
"And lamb makes us hurl."
"Hurl?"
"Puke."
"I shall have to remember the word 'hurl,' " the room service manager said dryly. "It has a certain charming . . . force to it."
"My roommate and I," Remo went on, "are on highly restricted diets. We eat fish and duck and rice and not much else."
"In that case, let me suggest the trout Almondine."
"Good suggesting, but my roommate has his heart set on duck."
"As I have explained, the duck is unavailable tonight, but it will be available again later in the week. Possibly by Thursday."
"Don't know if we'll be here that long," Remo said.
The room service manager's voice dropped several degrees Fahrenheit. "May I make a further suggestion? Why don't you ask your rather finicky roommate if, under the circumstances as I have outlined them, the trout Almondine might not be acceptable after all?"
"Hang on."
Remo cupped his hand over the hotel suite phone receiver and called into the next room.
"Hey, Little Father!"
"Trout have bones," came a squeaky, querulous voice.
Remo took his hand off the receiver and said, "He says trout is bony."
"We bone our trout, sir."
The squeaky voice came again. "Ask for the duck." "I did. They say they're out."
"Has every duck in the universe expired?" wondered the squeaky voice.
"Doubt it," said Remo.
"Then I shall have the duck. In orange sauce."
Remo spoke into the receiver. "Says he's really, really set on the duck. And he'd like it in orange sauce."
The last of the oil evaporated from the room service manager's tone.
"Sir, as I have explained-"
"Listen, by chance did you hear about the bellboy?"
"I seldom pay attention to the doings of lower-echelon personnel," the room service manager said bluntly.
"The poor guy ended up in a body cast."
"I believe something was mentioned along those lines. Regrettable."
"He nicked my roommate's trunk carrying it to the elevator," Remo pointed out.