It was best to die in one’s own land, Antonio Paredes believed. His father had fallen during the invasion of the Bahia de Cochinos, just thirty miles from the home in Juragua he had fled when the Communists came to power. The men strewn across the field south of Santa Clara had seen themselves as patriots also, but they were defenders on the wrong side of two rights in this instance. They had died at the hands of their comrades who were fighting to free them. What an incredible juxtaposition of purposes, Antonio thought.
“Papa Tony.” It was Captain Emilio Manchon, assistant to Colonel Ojeda. “The colonel wishes to see you.”
They walked toward the gathered command vehicles belonging to Ojeda’s old unit, the Second Mechanized Division, which he had appropriated en masse from the Cuban Army. Across the nation, Ojeda’s collaborators were waging the war with their own units, some of which they seized control of by subterfuge and threats, and some, like Ojeda, by elimination of a hated commander. And, surprising to some of the participants, they were winning. Ojeda was not among the doubters.
“Papa Tony.” The colonel was seated in the passenger seat of the familiar American Jeep of World War II vintage, hundreds of which were in use by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, and now by the rebels. He offered the American a drink from his metal canteen, also a vintage piece of equipment, though this from the former East Germany. “We have secured this area. Santa Clara is ours, and from here we can slice the island in half.”
Antonio noticed that the words were not said with glee but with precision, like a surgeon describing a procedure. A surgeon had certainly visited this field, though not of the healing kind. “Who were these men?”
A shot rang out nearby. Antonio jerked his head to see one of Ojeda’s men finishing off a loyalist who had not been killed outright. He felt a wave of coldness envelop his body.
“They died like they fought,” Ojeda said. “With a lack of proficiency. As for who they were… Captain?”
“The Thirteenth Infantry Brigade, Papa,” Manchon answered. “Nine hundred men.”
“Dispatched with in half a day,” Ojeda added. “We move tonight toward Cienfuegos. Major Sifuentes is closing on Mariel from Los Palacios. In the east Colonel Torrejón will have Camagüey in our hands by tomorrow evening.”
“And the people?” Antonio asked. “What are they doing? How are they reacting?”
Ojeda looked puzzled at the question. “The people? Papa, tell me, if you lived in the house of a slave master for thirty-five years, and suddenly the master was gone, what would you do? Eh?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Exactly. Did you think these people, who have known only one way of life, had only one man who told them what to do, what to eat, how to behave, did you think they would run into the streets and celebrate?” Ojeda brought up a long finger that waved back and forth. “No, Papa Tony. They cannot. They are afraid. Their world is changing. It will take time for them to understand what is happening. Much time.”
“I see your point, Colonel.” The man was wise, Antonio decided. Fierce and wise. He might have made a good leader for the nation under different circumstances.
“Papa,” Manchon began, “when will we have the locations of the loyalist units?”
“Tonight,” Antonio replied. “Each night we will get the report.”
“We will go over the information together.” Ojeda pronounced the directive like a dictator, then signaled his driver to take him away from the place where only dead enemies abounded. He wanted to find where there were more loyalists to remove from the rolls of the living.
“It was an appropriate place for the men to die,” Captain Manchon commented, pointing to an overgrown patch of rough earth off to the east a hundred yards or so. “The old cemetery at St. Augustine’s.”
Antonio walked toward the site, leaving Manchon behind. It was a diversion of sorts, something to relieve his mind from the constant thoughts of the newly dead by visiting those who had met their maker long before. From the looks of the graveyard it had been decades since any had been planted in the ground beneath the lush canopy. What church might have been near was reduced to rubble, a result of some battle in the Revolution before he was born. The headstones were mostly toppled, some broken, a tangled tapestry of weeds and vines covering the dark gray slabs.
“Witnesses to history,” Antonio said aloud. He bent down and moved the foliage aside with his hands, exposing several of the markers. “Mariana Lopez. Died 1962. Age twelve.” The grim reaper took whom he took, regardless of age, Antonio thought. His gaze moved across the other names, all people who had…
Wait. Antonio went back to one of the names, then to the next one, and to the one beyond that. There were several of them, all names foreign to the island. Well, not entirely correct as they had probably come as invited guests. Ha! Only to die for some reason. It must have been an accident or something. Maybe a transport went down. That would make sense.
While not of any real consequence to his mission, it was of an interesting nature and worthy of a mention in his situation report for the night. Langley could take it from there. Something for the history books, Antonio figured.
He pulled out his notebook and began taking down the names from the headstones, careful to get the correct spelling for each, thanking the stars that whoever had buried these fellows had opted for the English spelling of the names, rather than the traditional Russian.
The night’s sleep had done him wonders, as had the bottle of bourbon. The company hadn’t hurt either, though she had cost five times as much as the liquor. George Sullivan knew he could have had cheaper, but Loretta was a favorite, and, hell, just thinking about her expertise in certain matters made him realize that she was worth every penny.
But today. Damn. How was he going to explain to Bill that the guy he was suppose to meet the day before got the shit blown out of him? Just like those two gangland hits he’d covered in New York. The whole damn world was turning into a slaughterhouse.
“Guess the guy might have really had something,” Sullivan said to himself as he pulled into the driveway of his house. And guess I have a real story, now. If only he hadn’t run from the scene like a scared school kid afraid of the bully. Now he’d have to start digging almost twenty-four hours after the fact.
He closed the car door with a kick, hearing the familiar groan of old metal. Maybe it was time for a new car. His eyes scanned the front of the house as he trotted onto the porch, deciding it was definitely time for a new paint job for the house. Yellow peels were not attractive.
He took yesterday’s mail from the box and went through the front door, tossing his keys to the right as he checked what wonderful bills had come for—
The sound of his keys not landing on the bookcase just inside the entry caused him to freeze. Then his eyes came up from the mail, the sight immediately erasing the semblance of normalcy he had attained from the night just ended. Oh, my God.
Everywhere there was chaos. The furniture was turned over, the tables upended. Pictures were off the walls. Sullivan let the mail slip from his hands as he stood and listened for any sign that the intruder might still be there. He was just feet inside the door and could have bolted out with no problem, but there was quiet. Utter, disconcerting quiet.
He began to take steps forward, his eyes looking left to the kitchen. It was empty, though no less disheveled than the living room. Then the hallway. Stripped of the pictures and other decorative items that had adorned the wall. Still silent as he gingerly stepped over the debris littering the carpeted hall, past the bathroom, to the bedroom.