The bus filled quickly. In minutes the driver closed the door and pulled out of the station.
Tommy Carmellini opened the newspaper and examined the front page. All U.S. sanctions against travel and commerce with Cuba were lifted, and the U.S. was opening an embassy in Havana. There was a photo of the president of the United States shaking hands with Hector Sedano at a news conference in Washington.
Tommy flipped through the paper. On page four he found a short item reporting a Florida grand jury indictment of El Gato, a Cuban exile living in Miami, charging him with selling unnamed equipment to the Cuban government in violation of the laws existing at the time. According to the newspaper, El Gato was the only person indicted.
Carmellini folded the paper and tucked it in the seat pocket in front of him.
Cuba was long ago and far away. Of course he still read the news and classified summaries, and heard people talking about Cuba and the people he met there. Microsoft and Intel were building big factories in Havana, and Phillip Morris was buying one of the oldest cigar companies for beaucoup bucks. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton was now an assistant to some bigwig in the Pentagon, Commander Toad Tarkington went with him as an aide, and Toad’s wife, the newly promoted Commander Rita Moravia, was the executive officer of a fighter squadron. Hector Sedano was doing an enviable job running Cuba, and some fighter pilot nobody ever heard of named Carlos Corrado had been promoted to general and put in charge of the Cuban Air Force.
Life goes on.
Most of the seats on the bus to Boulder were occupied. The sun coming through the windows and the motion of the bus were very pleasant, and many people dozed. The seat beside Carmellini was empty, so he relaxed his grip on the backpack and closed his eyes.
He was awake when the bus crossed Davidson Mesa into Boulder, roaring down the turnpike at seventy-five. He marveled at the upthrust granite slabs of the Flatirons which formed a spectacular backdrop behind the town.
As the bus cruised by the university on its way downtown, Tommy Carmellini walked to the door by the driver and waited. He got off at the next stop and stood looking at the red stone buildings of the university as the bus accelerated away in a cloud of diesel exhaust.
He had a map in his hip pocket, but he had studied it so much he didn’t need to refer to it today. He strolled along, readily recognized the student union, and went from there.
The buildings were built all of a pattern, and with throngs of students coming and going, seemed to proclaim the glory of man’s quest for knowledge in the bright November sunshine.
Carmellini glanced at his watch a time or two, then strolled along with his hands in his pockets. He found the building he wanted, opened the door, and went in. He took the stairs up to the top floor.
The hallway was lined with doors, lots of doors. He walked along, examining them. Each door bore the name of a faculty member, and most had a small card advertising the faculty member’s office hours taped to the frosted glass.
He found the one he wanted, checked the hours. He was early, by ten minutes.
He knocked.
No answer.
Should he wait here in the hallway, or … perhaps the library? The hallway was empty, but someone could come along at any moment.
Of course the professor might not come at all. Carmellini recalled his own college days: a student could spend weeks trying to waylay a tenured associate professor in his office.
Well, if this didn’t work he would try something else. Just what, he didn’t know.
He decided on the library. He turned and started down the hall. He had taken three or four steps when the door opened behind him and a man in his sixties stuck his head out.
“Did you knock?”
“Yes.”
“Got a watch? Can you read? Office hours don’t start for ten minutes.”
“Yes, but—”
“Oh, come on in.”
Carmellini carefully closed the door behind him. The office was tiny, merely a cubbyhole with a desk and computer for the professor and one extra chair. Bookshelves filled with books lined both side walls. A shelf under the window behind the professor was piled willy-nilly with papers, manuscripts, files. The glass in the window didn’t look as if it had been cleaned in years.
“If this is about your thesis, we’re going to need more time than I have available today, so—”
“You’re Professor Svenson, right?”
“That’s right.” The professor had seated himself behind his desk. He looked up into Carmellini’s face and adjusted his glasses. His features twisted into a frown.
“Your face doesn’t … You’re …?”
“Your name is Olaf Svenson?”
“What do you want?”
Tommy Carmellini unzipped the backpack, pulled out the pistol with the silencer. He thumbed off the safety.
A look of terror crossed Svenson’s face. “The government has no evidence,” he said. “They decided not to prosecute. They—”
Tommy Carmellini shot Olaf Svenson in the center of the forehead from a distance of four feet. Svenson collapsed in his chair, his head tilted back.
Carmellini stepped around the desk, put the muzzle of the silencer against the side of the professor’s head and pulled the trigger twice more. Two little pops.
He bent down, retrieved the spent cartridges that had been ejected from the pistol, pocketed them, then safetied the weapon and returned it to his backpack.
He had touched only the doorknob. He extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the interior knob carefully, then pulled the door open. He pushed the little button to lock the door, then stepped into the hallway and pulled it shut. One hard twist of the cotton handkerchief on the outside knob, then he was walking away down the hallway and no one could ever prove he had been there.
Surrounded by young adults strolling, laughing, and visiting with each other on the sun-dappled grass, Tommy Carmellini walked across the campus with his head down, the backpack over his shoulder, thinking of Cuba.