“Shit!” said the president.
William Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini ate dinner in the main restaurant of the largest casino on the Malecon. The fact that 99 percent of the Cubans on the island didn’t eat this well was on Chance’s mind as he watched the waiters come and go amid the tables filled with European diners. Plenty amid poverty, an old Cuban story so common as to be unremarkable.
Carmellini merely played with his food; he was too tense to enjoy eating, had too much on his mind. Chance tried to concentrate on a superb string quartet playing classical music in the corner of the room.
To the best of his knowledge, he and Carmellini had not been followed on their expeditions around the capital, although he knew very well that a really first-class surveillance would be impossible to detect. With enough men, enough radios and automobiles, the subjects could be kept in sight at all times yet no one would be directly behind them, following where they could be seen or noticed. The subjects would seem to be alone, moving of their own will through the urban environment, yet their isolation would be an illusion.
He knew all that, yet he could detect no tails or signs of people that might be watching, taking an interest in him or Carmellini. Chance was no neophyte — he had a great deal of experience in this line of work, he knew what was possible and he knew what was likely.
He thought about all these things as the flawlessly decked-out Cuban waiter served coffee. The music formed a backdrop to the babble of conversation from his fellow diners, who were gabbing in at least five languages, perhaps six.
Chance sipped the coffee, let his eyes wander the room. No one was paying the slightest attention. Not a single furtive glance, no hastily broken eye contact, no one studiously ignoring him.
Well, if he and Carmellini were going to do it, tonight was the night. The longer they stayed in Havana, the more likely it was that they would attract the interest of the Department of State Security, the secret police. The interest of Santana and Alejo Vargas.
The truth was that Vargas might have burned them, might have devoted the resources necessary to learn everything about them. Vargas or his minions might be waiting tonight in the science hall, waiting to catch them red-handed, to embarrass the United States, perhaps even to execute Chance and Carmellini as spies.
In this line of work the imponderables were always huge, risks impossible to quantify. Still, he and Carmellini were going to have to look inside that building, see what was there.
If there was a biological weapons program in Cuba, it had to be in that building, which housed the largest, best-equipped laboratory known to be on the island. And the most knowledgeable people were nearby, the microbiologists and chemists and skilled lab technicians that would be needed to produce large quantities of microorganisms.
Chance was well aware that the most serious technical problem a researcher faced when constructing a biological weapon was how to keep the microorganisms alive inside a warhead or aerosol bomb for long periods of time. Some biological agents were easier to store than others, which was why they were most often selected for weapons research. For example, the spores of anthrax were very stable, as were the spores of the fungal disease coccidioidomycosis, which incapacitated but rarely killed its victims. Of course, the naturally occurring strains of an infectious disease could have been altered to make the microorganisms more stable, more virulent, or to overcome widespread immunity: years ago researchers produced a highly infective strain of poliomyelitis virus for just these reasons.
Idly he wondered about the microbiologist who ran the program. Who was he? What were his motivations? Perhaps that question answered itself in a totalitarian society, but it was worth researching, when he had some time. If he ever had some time.
“Ready?” Chance muttered to Carmellini, who drained the last of his coffee.
The two men paid their bill in cash and left the casino. They got into a car parked at the curb, one driven by one of their associates, and sped off into the night.
In a dark, deserted lane on the outskirts of the city the car in which Chance and Carmellini rode met the former telephone van they had used before, but now it bore the logo of a wholesale food supplier.
Inside the van Carmellini and Chance changed into black trousers, a black pullover shirt with a high collar, black socks, and black rubber-soled shoes. When they were dressed, they sat listening to the insects, drinking water, monitoring a radio frequency. One of their colleagues was observing the science building at the university. He checked in every fifteen minutes. So far he had seen nothing out of the ordinary.
“Why did you get into this line of work?” Chance asked Carmellini as they sat listening to the chirp of crickets.
“The challenge of it, I guess. I had an uncle who cracked a few safes … he was a legendary figure. The only time he ever went to the pen was for tax evasion: he did a couple years that time. I was always asking him questions. He told me if I wanted to be a safecracker, go to work for a firm that manufactured and installed the things. That was good advice. I installed safes for several summers while I was in college, got too cocky for my own good. Thought I had this stuff figured out, you know? One thing led to another, and before you know it I was cracking the things.”
Chance nodded.
“Here I am still at it. Only this time I won’t go to the pen if they catch me.”
“Yeah. The Cubans will probably execute us as soon as Vargas gets through with us, if there’s anything left to execute.”
“The way I figure it, I finally made the big leagues.”
“You optimists, always looking on the bright side.”
“Which brings up a point. You got us garroting wires and knives and pistols. I never carry weapons. I’m a safecracker, not a killer.”
“You’ll probably become a dead safecracker if they catch you in there.”
“I’ve never carried weapons. Ever.”
“A wise precaution if you are burgling gentlemen’s safes. You’re in the major leagues now.”
“Listen, Chance—”
“This isn’t a game, Tommy. Speaking for myself, I want to keep breathing. You’ll do as I say.”
The driver parked the van in an alley near the science building. He sat hunched over the wheel watching people on the sidewalks as Chance and Carmellini examined the building through binoculars. They were behind him, in the body of the van, looking forward through the windshield.
The way in, they decided, was through the roof. To get there, they would need to go into the building beside the science building, a lecture hall, ascend to the top floor, then get access to the roof. From here they would need to cross to the roof of the science hall, then find a way in.
The lecture hall was locked at night, though it was not guarded.
It was one in the morning when the van stopped in the empty alley behind the lecture hall. The two men in back pulled on latex gloves, swung on backpacks, then went out the van’s side door.
The door was not wired with an alarm. Carmellini picked the lock in thirty seconds, and they were in.
The van drove away as the door closed behind them.
They stood in the darkness letting their eyes adjust to the gloom.
Carmellini led off. Behind him Chance took out his pistol and thumbed off the safety, keeping the pistol pointed downward at the floor.
The weak light filtering through windows in classrooms and thence through open doors to the hallway did little to alleviate the darkness. The floors were uncarpeted concrete, the walls massive masonry, the ceilings at least twelve feet high. The building was devoid of decoration or even a trace of architectural imagination.