“You said that Ontiveros was executed,” Meyerson said. “What about his sister and Vishkov?”
“We don’t know about the sister,” Bud answered “But Vishkov was imprisoned. That’s the intel the Agency got through their exile contacts.”
“Another check in the value column for him,” Coventry observed.
They still needed the confirmation from their agent in Moscow, but this was adding almost undeniable credibility to Bud’s belief.
“Bud, you better step up our reconnaissance of the island,” Meyerson suggested. “Damn the budget on this one.” He knew that Coventry wasn’t cleared for Senior Citizen, so mention of Aurora was out of the question. The NSA would get his drift.
Coventry still had a hard time fathoming it. “Do you realize what this means? We could have a nuclear attack on a U.S. city at any time.” His own words scared and frustrated him. “And anything we do to prevent it might just precipitate it.”
“I think we realize it, Jim,” Meyerson said.
“This will not happen,” Bud said forcefully. The phone call he was soon to make would be a step toward that end.
“Lost!” Fidel Castro screamed. “How?”
Raul waited, his silent signal for his brother to calm himself.
“How?”
“An ambush. The rebels destroyed the vehicles providing security, then the tank trucks themselves. A total loss.”
The president looked disbelievingly at his brother. “The shipment must get through to Asunción. It must!”
“It will, Fidel. Los Guaos is preparing another shipment.”
“This time with ironclad security,” Fidel said, making a fist in the air.
Raul wanted to add something positive to the event. “We did kill all the rebels who ambushed the convoy.”
“How did they…?” The president’s eyes lit up, and a smile appeared upon the gray-bearded face. Yes. They wouldn’t know that there was… “Excellent.”
Raul nodded. The surprise would not stop the rebels, but it would bloody them. Guevarra was a madman. The perfect madman to fly under these circumstances. “Fidel, soon we must speak of a target.”
“Yes. Soon.”
“Captain Cresada reports that the patrol never returned,” Manchon explained. Night had come to the island, and with it some respite from the day’s advance. He, Ojeda, and Papa Tony sat quietly beneath a hastily erected tent in a field outside Aguada de Pasajeros.
“None returned?” Ojeda asked for clarification. “Not a single man?”
“Not one.”
Antonio held the latest report from Langley on his lap. The colonel was concerned, obviously at the apparent loss of several men, but also at something Antonio couldn’t identify.
“None?” Ojeda asked again, a single nod all the response needed. There could not be. We made certain. His thoughts drifted back to a decade before, training with the Soviets in the land that became their own Vietnam. Not one man… Decimation of the Mujahedeen ambushes had been commonplace there also, though not common enough to stave off defeat. “I want any patrols who are out of protective range to be issued shoulder-fired SAMs.”
“You think…?”
“We will not take the chance.”
It was cheating, but who gave a damn? He owned the lake, the fifty acres around it, and all the fish in it stupid enough to bite at his shiny lure in the dark hours approaching midnight. The light shining down from the dock didn’t hurt, of course, but Joe Anderson had convinced himself that if he was going to leave this earth anytime soon, he was going to take as many of his favorite quarry as he could with him, regardless of laws banning night fishing.
Correction…second-favorite quarry.
“Phone, hon’,” his wife yelled from the back door of their house, which was nestled in the trees in Minnesota backwater country. She had gotten quite used to his late night expeditions to thin out the aquatic population.
Joe looked greedily down at a northern pike hovering below the surface. In a few weeks it would be too cold to fish from the dock, and soon it wouldn’t matter at all. So what? He smiled at the fish. “You’re mine. Just wait.”
He laid his Zebco rod down and went to the back door, picking the receiver up off the dinette table just inside.
He looked to his wife. “This time of night?”
She just shrugged.
“Hello.”
“Captain Anderson?”
Shit… Joe thought, knowing before another word was said that the fucking northern pike was going to get away.
CHAPTER TEN
CONVERGENCE
“Bourbon, Ted.” Sullivan pushed the glass closer to the mirrored wall of beautiful bottles, some clear and others filled with the dirty brown liquid he craved.
“Still early, George,” the bartender said. “You gonna pace yourself this time?”
This time? Was he insinuating…? It wasn’t worth arguing, George knew. Ted was the guy with the liquor. Ted was his friend right now. Almost his best friend. “Nice and slow tonight.” Last one in this joint, you lousy, overprotective ass.
The sound was more than beautiful, a sweet, refreshing swish as the bourbon reached down from the neck of the bottle and filled the glass only to the point where the optimist/pessimist debate could ensue. Never enough, the naysayer in Sullivan decided, lifting the glass to his lips, taking in the first taste of the liquid that helped him to relax. Helped him to think. There was much to think about, much to plan. A story to get. His story. To hell with Bill.
“Yank my story,” Sullivan muttered, downing half of what remained in his glass.
“What?”
Sullivan lifted his head, eyeing the bartender. Not only was he a mother, he was a nosy mother. “Nothing. Trouble at work.”
Surprise, surprise. “Maybe you should change your line of work.”
“I like being a reporter,” George disagreed. “I’m good at it.”
“I was talking about your moonlighting,” the bartender said, looking at the glass that was nearing empty. Give it up, guy. Regulars were good for business, but he hated watching the pathetic ones drink their lives into a toilet.
“I’m good at that, too.” George looked away, back to his drink.
Too good, the bartender thought to himself, wondering if this regular put the same amount of effort into the job that paid his tab.
“Strike eight,” Frankie said, scratching the establishment known as the Tree House off of their list after getting back in the Chevy.
“Nice place,” Art commented. “Remind me never to go there unless I’m drunk first. That way it won’t look so bad.”
“It’s not the looks, partner,” Frankie said, wiping the tip of her nose. She looked up at the flashing sign as Art pulled away. “A urinal with neon.”
They were getting a good taste of what Sullivan required in a place to get shit-faced, namely “not much.” Bottles, bar stools, and a bathroom, sometimes all in one room, according to Aguirre’s discriminating nose. Art’s was less affected. His additional years in the Bureau, particularly his time working the OC hits in Chicago, had seen him observing many an autopsy, where the term “smell” took on meanings it was never intended to represent.