Jake Grafton scratched his head.
“The temperature would have to come up really quickly to kill the viruses before the place started venting to the atmosphere,” Chance added. “A regular old house fire wouldn’t do it. We need something a lot hotter.”
“The fires of hell,” Toad said, and his listeners nodded.
The first batches of satellite imagery began coming off the printers within an hour after the suspected silo locations were encrypted and transmitted. The air intelligence specialists were soon bent over the images, studying them with magnifying glasses. Before long Jake Grafton was shoulder to shoulder with the experts.
“This first location looks like it’s smack in the middle of a sugarcane field,” the senior Air Intelligence officer groused.
Jake Grafton didn’t have to think that over very long. “Let’s assume that our global positioning is more accurate than the Cubans’.”
“You mean they don’t know the silos’ exact lat/long locations?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, the nearest building to this sugarcane field is this large barn, which is about three-quarters of a kilometer away.” The specialist pointed. Jake used the magnifying glass.
“That could be it,” he muttered. “Let’s see what we can dig out of the archives. How long has this barn been here, have there ever been any large trucks around — let’s look in all seasons of the year — and are Cuban Army units nearby? I’m really interested in army units.”
“Power lines,” the senior AI officer mused. “Strikes me that there ought to be a large power feed nearby.”
“It sort of fits,” Toad Tarkington said to Jake. “If they built the barn first, then they could dig the silo inside the barn and truck the dirt out at night, pour concrete, do all the work at night.”
“Install the missile at night when the thing is finished,” the AI officer said, continuing the thought, “and if they had no unusual activity near the barn, no one would ever be the wiser.”
“Prove to me that that is what they did,” Jake said. “And prove that we won’t be sending troops into an ambush.”
The admiral stood amid the banks of computers and watched the operators trade data via satellite with the computers at the National Security Agency in Maryland.
The CIA agents were fed and given bunks to sleep in. They went without protest. Someone brought Jake Grafton a cup of coffee, which he sipped as he walked around the intel and planning spaces thinking about intermediate-range ballistic missiles with biological warheads.
Dawn found Ocho Sedano still afloat, still hanging grimly on to the milk jug and treading water. He had stopped thinking hours ago. Hunger and exhaustion had sapped his strength and thirst had thickened his blood. He was not asleep, nor was he awake, but in some semiconscious state in between.
He found himself looking into the glare of the rising sun as it rose from the sea. The realization that he had made it through the night crossed his mind, as did the certainty that today was the last day.
Today, someone must find me today ….
The television lights were on and the cameras running when Alejo Vargas walked to the podium in the main reception room of the presidential palace in Havana. For forty years Fidel Castro had used this forum to speak to the Cuban people and the world — now it was Alejo’s turn.
“We are here,” he began, “at a desperate hour in our nation’s life. The greatest Cuban patriot of them all, Fidel Castro, died here five days ago. Everyone listening to my voice knows the details of his career and the greatness of the leadership he provided for Cuba. I was with him when he died”—here Vargas wiped tears from his eyes—“and I can tell you, it was the most profound moment of my life.
“Yesterday the Council of State elected me interim president, to hold office until the next meeting of the National Assembly, which as you know elects members of the Council of State and selects its president. I swore to the ministers and the Council of State that I would uphold the Constitution and defend Cuba with all my strength. Now I swear it to you.”
He paused again and gathered himself. “Today there are people on the streets who accuse me of murdering Fidel. May God strike me dead if I am guilty of that crime.”
He paused, took several deep breaths, and since God didn’t terminate him then and there, continued:
“Fidel Castro died of cancer. His body shall lie in state for the next three days. If you love Cuba, I invite you to pay your respects to this great man, and to look at his corpse. See if there is a single mark of violence on the body. My enemies have accused me of many things, but the murder of Cuba’s greatest patriot is the most vicious cut of all. I too worshiped Fidel. Look at the body carefully — let the evidence of your own eyes prove the falsity of these accusations against me.”
Here again he had to pause to wipe his eyes, to steady himself before the podium.
“I have been accused of other crimes, so I take this opportunity to bare my soul before you, to tell you the truth as God Almighty knows it, so you will know the lies of my enemies when you hear them. My enemies are also whispering that I killed Raúl Castro at a meeting of the Council of State yesterday, when the facts of his brother’s death were first announced. The truth is Raúl was murdered as he stood at the table discussing the hopes and dreams of his dead brother, by Hector Sedano. Raúl Castro was shot down before a dozen eyewitnesses, myself included. I swear to you this day that Hector Sedano will pay the price the law requires for his crime.”
He paused again here, referred to his notes. Someone had to take the fall for shooting Raúl, so why not Hector?
“The story of our country is a story of struggle, a struggle between the socialist people of Cuba and the evil forces of capitalism, forces controlled and dominated by the United States, the colossus to the north. The struggle was not won by Fidel, although he fought the great fight — it continues even today. For example, while they are representing to the world that they are destroying their inventory of chemical and biological weapons, the United States has introduced these weapons to Cuban soil.”
The camera panned to the artillery shell resting on its base on a table beside the podium.
“Here is an American artillery shell loaded with the bacteria that causes anthrax, one of the deadliest diseases known to man. This shell was stored in a warehouse at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, which is sacred Cuban soil. The Americans were unwilling to keep their poisonous filth in their own country, so they exported it to ours.
“I have this day asked the ambassadors of five of the nations who keep embassies in Havana to send their military attachés to inspect this warhead. Here is a sworn document these officers executed that states the shell is as I have represented, a biological warhead.” He fluttered the paper, then held it up so the camera could zoom in.
“The revelation here today of the United States’s perfidy will undoubtedly provoke a reaction from the bandits to our north. Fidel always knew that the day might come when we would have to defend ourselves again from American aggression, so he installed a battery of intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cuba for defensive purposes. These missiles are operational and ready now to defend our sacred soil. Rest assured, my fellow Cubans, that we shall resist American aggression, that we shall fight to defend Cuba from those who would destroy her, and we shall make her great for the generations to come.