He talked about the mission when Jake Grafton asked, however, told the admiral how it had gone, assured him that all the cultures in the building had been destroyed.
“The problem is that the bastards may have cultures stashed anyplace. Vargas may have a potful under his bed, just in case.”
“Yes,” Jake Grafton said, “I understand.”
He did understand. To be absolutely certain of eradicating all the poliomyelitis virus in Cuba, he would need to burn the whole island to a cinder.
Jake went to his stateroom and tried to get a few hours’ sleep himself.
Tired as he was, sleep wouldn’t come. He tossed and turned as he thought about the battle just ended and the one still to come. What had he learned from last night’s battle?
What could go wrong tonight?
After an hour of frustration, he took a long, hot shower. This time when he lay down he dozed off.
Two hours later he was wide awake. He put on a clean uniform and headed for his office.
Toad was already there huddled with Gil Pascal. “Rita’s okay,” he told Jake. “Crash Wade didn’t make it. Amazing, isn’t it? One dead, one just bruised.”
“Can Rita fly tonight?” Jake asked.
Tarkington swallowed hard, nodded once.
“She’s the best Osprey pilot we’ve got,” Jake said. “She’s got the flight if she wants it.”
“She’d kill me if I asked you to leave her behind.”
“She probably would, and you such a handsome young stud. What a loss to the world that would be.”
“The Osprey that is bringing the survivor from Hue City will be here in twenty minutes. I’ll bring him to your cabin.”
“Hector Sedano’s brother?”
“That’s correct, sir. And the message said he wants to go back to Cuba.”
Maximo Sedano parked his car on the pier so he wouldn’t have to carry his gear very far. Scuba tanks, wet suit, flippers, weight belt, mask, he had the whole wardrobe.
He got all that stuff aboard the boat, checked the fuel, then cast off.
The gold was in Havana Harbor; he was sure of it. He had a chart that he had laid off in grids, and he had labeled each grid with a number that reflected a probability that he thought reasonable. The area off the main shipping piers didn’t seem promising, nor did the busy areas by the fishing piers. The area off the private docks where Fidel had kept his boat seemed to Maximo to be the most likely, so that was where he would look first.
He took the boat to the center of the most promising area and anchored it.
It was inevitable that people would see him, so he had told everyone who asked that he was studying old shipwrecks in Havana Harbor. He knew enough about that subject to make it sound plausible — he could talk about the American battleship Maine and three treasure galleons that went on the rocks here in the harbor during a hurricane.
If he found it, he would not let on. If he found the gold, he would leave it where it was until he could come back for it with paid men and the proper equipment.
If.
Well, every man needs a dream, he reflected, and this was his. Better this than dying defending a ballistic-missile silo. Those fools.
The gold was near. He knew it. Sitting here on the boat he could feel its power.
God damn you, Fidel.
Juan Sedano, El Ocho, got out of the Osprey with a look of wonder on his face. The airplane, the aircraft carrier, the jets and noise and hundreds of foreigners, few of whom spoke his language — it was quite a lot for a young man who had never before been out of Cuba.
He got out of the Osprey wearing a set of navy dungarees, a white T-shirt, and a Hue City baseball cap, and carrying a pillowcase containing clothes, underwear, toilet items, and souvenirs given him by the men and women of Hue City, everything from photographs of the ship to CDs and Playboy magazines.
Toad Tarkington met Ocho on the flight deck and led the tall, broad-shouldered young man into the island and up the ladder to the flag bridge, where Jake Grafton and an interpreter, a lieutenant fighter pilot of Latin descent, were waiting. Jake took Ocho and the lieutenant into his at-sea cabin, where the three of them found chairs.
“When did you leave Cuba?” Jake Grafton asked Ocho after the introductions.
“Six or seven days ago,” the lieutenant said, “he isn’t sure. He lost track of the days at sea.”
“Tell him that Fidel Castro is dead, that his brother Hector is in prison.”
The Spanish-speaking junior officer did so.
Ocho’s reaction was unexpected. Tears streamed down his face. “He asked me not to leave Cuba. He must have known that Fidel was dying, that something was happening. I left anyway.”
He wiped at the tears, embarrassed. “I love my brother. He is my idol, a true man who believes in something larger than himself. I cry because I am ashamed of myself, of what I have done. He asked me not to go and I refused to listen.”
“Tell me about Hector,” Jake Grafton asked gently.
The admiral had expected to spend five minutes with the boy, but the five minutes became fifteen, then a half hour, then an hour. Ocho told of going to meetings with Hector, of the speeches he made, of his many friends, of antagonizing the regular priests and the bureaucrats while he spread the message of a coming new day to anyone who would listen, and many did.
Jake gave Ocho part of his attention while he thought about the lab in the science building in the University of Havana.
When Ocho finally began to run dry, Jake picked up the telephone and called Toad. “I’m in my at-sea cabin,” he said. “Have the guys in the television studio play that tape we downloaded from the satellite this morning on the television in this stateroom. No place else.”
“Yessir.”
Toad called back in three minutes. “Channel two, Admiral.”
Jake turned on the television.
In a few seconds Fidel Castro came on the screen. He was obviously a sick man. He was sitting behind a desk, wearing a green fatigue shirt.
“Citizens of Cuba, I speak to you today for the last time. I am fatally ill ….”
The young lieutenant translated.
“I wish to spend a few minutes telling you of my dream for Cuba, my dream of what our nation can become in the years ahead. It is imperative that we end our political isolation, that we join the family of nations as a full-fledged member. To make this transition a reality will require major changes on our part, and a new political vision ….”
Jake Grafton moved closer to the television set, adjusted his glasses, and studied the image of Fidel Castro. The man was perspiring heavily, obviously in pain, and every so often he would move slightly, as if seeking a more comfortable position.
“For years I have watched with admiration and respect,” Fidel continued, “as Hector Sedano moved among our people, making friends, telling them of his vision for Cuba, preparing them for the changes and sacrifices that will be necessary in the days to come.”
Fidel winced, paused, and took a sip of water from a glass sitting nearby. Then he continued:
“We as a nation do not have to give up our revolutionary commitment to social justice to participate as full-fledged members of the world economy. We would be traitors to the heroes of the revolution and ourselves were we to do so. In the past few years the Church, in which so many Cubans believe, has come to understand that one cannot be a true Christian without an active commitment to social justice, the commitment that every loyal Cuban carries in his breast as his birthright. The Church has changed to join us. Now we also must change.