It was a tale of a child’s enduring love. A young boy, whose father’s Spitfire has been shot down in flames during the Battle of Britain, is sent to live in a seaside village with his aunt. Every night, he goes down to an old amusement park by the sea and rides the Whirl-o-Drome, an ancient merry-go-round with toy airplanes secured at the ends of long poles. The little planes spin round and round, and climb or dive when the children use the airplane’s control stick.
One night, just before closing and after many, many rides, the boy’s little silver plane comes to life. The lights inside the cockpit suddenly illuminate. Needles are spinning on the dials. Tiny red lights are winking out on the wing tips. Suddenly, the boy hears static and a faint voice. It’s coming from the headphones of an old leather flying helmet that has somehow appeared between his feet. He places the helmet on his head and pulls the goggles down over his eyes. Suddenly, a button he’s never seen before begins to glow bright red at the center of the console. The voice in the headphones tells him to push the red button in front of him. He does, and the little airplane disengages from the arm of the ride, and the boy soars out over the sea.
“Climb, climb!” says the strangely familiar voice in his earphones, and the boy pulls back on the stick, soaring higher and higher. Finally, he bursts through a canyon of clouds into clear starlit air. He sees an old Spitfire doing barrel rolls in the moonlight. He races to catch up with the plane and sees the number on its wing.
Number Seven. His father’s number.
“Timmy? Is that you?” the voice in his earphones says. The voice sounds an awful lot like—
“Y-yes?”
“See that big bright moon on the horizon? You stay right off my starboard wing and follow me all the way there. There’s something I want you to see!”
“Are you really—Number Seven? Because Number Seven was my father’s plane and—”
“It’s me, Timmy,” the voice said. “It’s your father. You can find me up here most nights, if you’ll just believe in your little plane.”
It was a lovely tale.
“Skipper?” Tommy Quick said. “Sorry to bother you. But the guests have arrived.”
“Ah, yes. The guests. Thank you, Tom. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
He realized his heart was still racing. He willed the image of Vicky to appear out there before him. He let her smiling eyes finally cause the triphammer of his heart to slow gradually to a near normal pace. What on earth was the matter with him? He wouldn’t admit it, even to himself, but this wasn’t the first time he’d suffered one of these little, what did they call them, seizures. They’d begun shortly after Blackhawke had arrived in the Caribbean. Ironic. People came here to relax.
After a little while, he felt somewhat like his old self once again. He sprang from the banquette and headed for his stateroom to shower and dress for dinner. He looked at his watch on his way down the aft stairway. He had maybe ten minutes to collect himself before it was time to go down and suffer his insufferable guests.
13
The huge twin rotor blades of the olive-green Kamov-26 helicopter started spinning rapidly as Manso spooled up the revs of the jet turbine engine. He looked over at his lone passenger, Fidel Castro.
“All buckled in, Comandante?” he asked over the intercom. Both of them were wearing headphones with speakers. It was the only way you could communicate because of the turbine engine’s whine.
“Sí, Manso. Vámonos!” Castro said.
Manso flipped a switch that killed any transmission in the leader’s headphones.
“Havana Control, this is Alpha Bravo Hotel One,” Manso said. “Do you copy?”
“Copy loud and clear, Alpha Bravo, you’re clear for takeoff. Over.” Manso recognized the silky voice of Rodrigo del Rio, owner of the Club Mao-Mao and, more importantly, Castro’s former deputy head of State Security. Now he’d been bought and paid for by Manso. His loyalty to Manso was unquestioned. Only this morning, the air traffic controller typically in the tower at this time of day had been stabbed to death in his bed by del Rio. Rodrigo had used his weapon of choice, a gleaming pair of silver scissors that had earned him the nickname Scissorhands.
“Roger that, tower,” Manso said.
He took a deep breath and said the three code words that would change Cuba forever. Upon hearing the code, Rodrigo, in concert with Manso’s brothers Juan, General of the Army of the West, and Carlos, Commander in Chief of the Navy, would unleash their forces. They would initiate the first military takeover of Cuba in forty-some years.
“Mango is airborne.”
“We copy that, Alpha Bravo,” Rodrigo said. “Mango in the air. Over.”
Safety checks complete, rotors engaged, the Kamov-26 rose vertically some forty feet into the air. Manso tilted the nose over to initiate forward velocity and roared across the bay. The old yacht club fell away quickly, but Manso liked to fly low, almost brushing the tops of the sailboat masts in the marina.
The skippers on the fishing trawlers all knew el jefe’s chopper on sight, and he saw many of them lift their caps and wave as Manso executed a sharp looping turn to the southeast and headed back across the Malecón that ran along the bay, climbing up over Morro Castle and the crumbling city of Havana.
“The speech, it was excellent, Comandante,” Manso said, once they were out over the countryside.
Castro turned and gave him a look. Manso knew as the words were coming out that it had been a foolish remark. They’d known each other too long for such trivialities. Castro had an innate genius when it came to selling himself. It had allowed him to dazzle millions of people around the world. This speech was simply more anti-American self-promotion, done brilliantly, nothing new.
Beads of sweat had popped out on Manso’s brow and threatened to run down into his eyes. He realized he was too nervous for small talk. Tense. It would be wise to just shut up and fly.
“Gracias,” Castro said, the word dripping sarcasm, and turned to gaze out the window at his failed utopia, falling away beneath him as the chopper gained altitude. God knows what he’s thinking, Manso thought, surreptitiously eyeing his leader. Look at him. He has confronted and defeated ten American presidents. He has made himself a martyr through sheer defiance, spitting in the face of Uncle Sam. With the Cold War ended, he has used America’s outdated trade embargo to further burnish his shining star. A cunning actor, strutting across the stage of the world, occasionally luring popes, potentates, terrorists, and presidents to the little island, adding a little glamour to his cast.
This earnest, brave-hearted, little off-off-Broadway production, Castro’s Cuba, had been running for over forty years. The star of the show was still shining bright, his name still up in lights all over the world.
The secret? Manso had learned it well from Escobar. Every great hero needs an implacable enemy. El jefe had the perfect enemy. The one country the world loves to hate. America. Manso had watched, first Pablo and then Fidel. He’d learned every sleight of political hand and every brilliant move, and was now ready to implement his former masters’ concepts for himself.
Castro, at seventy-five, obviously had no idea what the immediate future held for him, or Manso would be dead. Were there even a trace of suspicion, the leader would never be up in this helicopter alone with him. So, why the tightness in Manso’s chest, the sweat stinging his eyes?
It had been a tense six months. Days and nights of endless planning and tense debate. Even this simple moment, timing a flight from the Havana Yacht Club to Telaraña, had been a subject of elaborate study and conjecture.