If there was a biological weapons program, Chance told himself, the evidence would be inside the ministry, the headquarters of the secret police. There must be paper, records, orders, letters — something! No one could run a serious project like that without paper, not even Vargas.
The evidence is inside that building, he told himself.
After Fidel died of poison she had handed him, Mercedes was locked in her bedroom by Vargas and Santana. Which was just as well.
She pulled a blanket over herself and curled up on the bed in the fetal position. The silence and afternoon gloom were comforting.
Amazingly, no tears came. Fidel had been dying for months, she was relieved that he had finally come to the end of the journey, the end of the pain.
In the stillness she listened to the sound of her breathing, the sound of her heart pumping blood through her ears, listened to an insect buzzing somewhere, listened to the distant muted thump of footfalls and doors closing, people engaged in the endless business of living.
She saw a gecko, high on the wall, quite motionless except for his sides, which moved in and out, just enough to be seen in the dim light coming in through the window drapes. He seemed to be watching her. More likely he was waiting for a fly, as he did somewhere every day, as his ancestors had done since the dawn of time, as his progeny would do until the sun flamed up and burned the earth to a cinder. Then, they say, the sun would burn out altogether and the earth, if it still existed, would wander the universe forever, a cold, lifeless rock, spinning aimlessly. Until then geckos clung to walls and God provided flies. Amazing how that worked.
She wondered about Hector, wondered if he would be found and arrested, or murdered and shoveled into an anonymous grave. God knows she had done everything possible to warn him. Perhaps the man didn’t want to be warned: perhaps he knew the task before him was impossible. Perhaps he really believed all that Jesuit bullshit and in truth didn’t care if he lived or died. Most likely that was it.
The truth was that the more you knew of life, of the compromises one must make to get from day to day, the more you realized the futility of it all. None of it meant anything.
Man lived, man died, governments rose and fell, justice was done or denied, venality was crushed or triumphant; in the long run none of it mattered a damn. The world spun on around the sun, life continued to be lived ….
When we perish from human memories we are no more. We are well and truly gone, as if we had never been.
She threw aside the cover and sat up in bed, hugging her knees. She thought again of Fidel, and finally let him go. She then had only the twilight, the room falling into darkness.
Toad Tarkington was waiting for Jake Grafton beside the V-22 Osprey on the flight deck of United States.
The Osprey was a unique airplane, with a turbo-prop engine mounted on the end of each wing. Just now the pilot had the engines tilted straight up so that the 38-foot props on each engine would function as helicopter rotor blades. The machine could lift off vertically like a helicopter or make a short, running takeoff. Once airborne the pilot would gradually transition to forward flight by tilting the engines down into a horizontal position. Then the giant props would function as conventional propellers, though very large ones. The machine could also land vertically or run on to a short landing area. A cross between a large twin-rotor helicopter and a turbo-prop transport, the extraordinarily versatile Osprey had enormous lifting ability and 250-knot cruise speed, capabilities exceeding those of any conventional helicopter.
Jake Grafton stood looking at the plane for a few seconds as it sat on the flight deck. With its engines mounted on the very ends of its wings — a position dictated by the size of the rotor blades — the machine could not stay airborne if one of the rotor transmissions failed. It could fly on one engine, however, if the drive shaft linking the good engine to the transmission of the distant rotor blade remained intact.
The Osprey’s extremely complicated systems were made even more so by the requirement that the wings and rotors fold into a tight package so that the plane could be stored aboard ship. The transitions between hovering and wing-borne flight were only possible because computers assisted the pilots in flying the plane. Complex controls, complex systems — Jake thought the machine a flying tribute to the ingenuity of the human species.
The evening looked gorgeous. The sky was clearing, visibility decent. The late afternoon sun shone on a breezy, tumbling sea. Jake took a deep breath and climbed into the plane.
He put on a regular headset so that he could talk to the flight crew.
“’Lo, Admiral.”
“Hello, Rita. How are you?”
“Ready to rock and roll, sir. Let me know when you’re strapped in.”
“I’m ready.” Jake settled back and watched Toad and the crewman strap in.
Lightly loaded, the Osprey almost leaped from the flight deck into the stiff sea wind, which was coming straight down the deck. Rita wasted no time rotating the engines forward to a horizontal position; the craft accelerated quickly as the giant rotors became propellers and the wings took the craft’s weight.
An hour later Rita Moravia landed the Osprey vertically on a pier at Guantánamo between two light poles. The sun was down by then and the area was lit by flood lights.
A marine lieutenant colonel stood waiting. He had the usual close-cropped hair, a deep tan, the requisite square jaw, and he looked as if he spent several hours a day lifting weights.
As they walked toward him Toad muttered, just loud enough for Jake to hear, “Another refugee from the Mr. Universe contest. If you can’t make it in bodybuilding, there’s always the marines.”
“Can it, Toad.”
The lieutenant colonel saluted smartly. “I am deploying a company around the warehouse, Admiral. We’re taking up positions now.”
“Excellent,” Jake Grafton said. “I brought an aerial photo that was taken this afternoon”—Toad took it from a folder and passed it over—“if you would show me where you are placing your people?”
“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt, the landing team commander, used the photo and a finger to show where he would put his company. He finished with the comment, “My plan is to channel any intruders into these two open areas formed by these streets, then kill them there.”
“What are your alternatives?”
They discussed them, and the fact that Eckhardt planned to divide one platoon between several empty warehouses and use them as reserves. “I think this will be a very realistic exercise, sir,” the colonel finished. “I have even had ammunition issued to the men, although of course they have been instructed to keep their weapons empty.”
“Colonel Eckhardt, this is not an exercise.”
“Sir?”
“That warehouse, warehouse nine, contains CBW warheads. They are being loaded aboard this freighter and the one that left the other day for transport back to the states, where they are supposed to be destroyed. The first ship that left carrying the damned things has disappeared. We’re hunting for it now. I don’t know just what in hell is going on, so I’m putting your outfit here just in case.”
“What is the threat, sir?”
“I don’t know.”
Jake could see Eckhardt was working hard to keep his face under control.
“If the Cubans or anybody else comes over, under, around, or through the perimeter fence, start shooting.”
“Yes, sir,” Eckhardt said.
“Have your people load their weapons, Colonel. They will defend themselves and this building. No warning shots — shoot to kill.”