The list — brief as it was — did contain a few articles of an unthreatening nature. One of those was the ancient phonograph. Another was the recording of Mendo Balzan now playing on the old machine.
Both items were several decades past their expected lifespans. They were old now, and worn to the point of near failure. The machine and the recording had been almost new when they’d come into his possession.
Garriga had been a boy then, not yet seven years old. He could still see his father, the young lieutenant standing tall and proud in the drab olive uniform of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, rifle over his shoulder, eyes shielded from the April sun by the stiff brim of a flat-topped “Castro” cap.
Even as a child, Rafael Garriga had recognized his obligation to be brave. He had not run forward to clutch at his father’s leg. As badly as he had wanted to, he had not pleaded for his father to stay, and ignore the call to duty.
Unshed tears blurring his vision, he had watched his father climb into the back of the truck with the other soldiers. Stood waving silently as the truck drove away, toward that place called Bahía de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs.
Garriga had listened to this record a thousand times in the half century since his father left to fend off the invasion. Maybe two thousand times. The voice of Mendo Balzan and his accompanying orchestra were nearly lost beneath the sizzle and static of the worn grooves.
There were other memories of Garriga’s father. Memories of the aftermath. The formerly strong lieutenant wasting away in the back bedroom of their tiny house in San Cristóbal after the doctors had done what little they could. Shuddering with fever, drenched in sweat and despair, surrendering his life one painful centimeter at a time.
Garriga would never know who threw the grenade that cut his father down. Maybe one of the ex-Cuban stooges. Maybe one of the CIA operatives fighting alongside the traitors. Either way, the Americans had been behind it. The funding, the weapons, the training, all of it had come from the Americans.
For his birthday in May of 1961, Raphael Garriga had received three gifts which he carried to this day — his father’s phonograph machine, his father’s favorite record, and the purpose that would dominate his existence.
He had waited decades for his chance to repay the injuries done to his country and his family. And now, instead of exacting a well-deserved revenge, the weaklings who mismanaged his government could not wait to ingratiate themselves with the Americans.
The strength of Cuba, the spirit of Cuba, had died with Fidel. Garriga was sickened by the ease (and even eagerness) with which his beloved country had surrendered its honor.
He pulled out the humidor and bottle, and laid them on top of his desk. At the back of the drawer he found the metal lock box and pulled that out as well. The box was heavy, so he set it down carefully next to the rum bottle. He twisted the combination dial through all the proper turns until the lid opened.
Inside were two 9mm pistols, six magazines of ammunition, and an Iridium model 9788 satellite phone.
He pulled out the phone and pressed the power button. It took a few seconds for the device to cycle itself online, locate the proper satellite signal, and synchronize with the company’s commercial encryption stream.
When all was ready, he punched in the number from memory, beginning with the international access code, 00, and then the country code, 850. The device was specifically programmed not to remember phone numbers. Another precaution that was probably unnecessary.
Eight or nine annoyingly-electronic rings later, the Korean answered. “This is not our agreed-upon time,” he snapped.
“I don’t care what we agreed upon,” Garriga said. “You didn’t tell me that your warheads are unstable.”
The Korean’s voice was hard. “Our warheads are perfectly stable. Our weapons technology is—”
Garriga cut him off. “I don’t remember anything in the plan about nuclear explosions a hundred and fifty kilometers off my coast. If that wasn’t an unstable warhead, then what the hell happened? Are you blowing up random parts of the Caribbean? Or does Jamaica suddenly have nuclear weapons?”
The Korean grumbled something in his own language, and then shifted back to Spanish. “It was our weapon, but it was not an accident. It was a contingency measure.”
“What does that mean?”
“Our delivery vessel was intercepted by hostile forces. Possibly U.S. Navy SEALs. Our senior man aboard apparently found it necessary to detonate one of the warheads, to prevent compromise of the cargo.”
“Apparently?”
“The man died in the explosion,” the Korean said. “We can hardly question him.”
Garriga forced himself to breathe slowly. The Americans again. Always it was the damned Americans.
“Our final shipment is in transit,” the Korean said. “After delivery, we can move forward with the next phase of the operation.”
Garriga was surprised. “Another shipment? The Americans are alerted now. They’ll intercept it.”
The Korean spoke with cold amusement. “We planned for this possibility. We have something unusual prepared. If the Americans go after our shipment, I believe they will very much regret it.”
Garriga opened his mouth to ask a question, but the satellite phone emitted the low-pitched squeal of a terminated connection.
He returned the phone to the lock box and spun the combination dial. Across the room, the record had reached its end, and the phonograph needle was bumping rhythmically in the final groove.
CHAPTER 8
Lieutenant (junior grade) Sheila Marek was busily engaged in not thinking about peanut butter crackers. The rumbling in her stomach was growing louder and more frequent now, and the vending machine was only about fifteen steps away — just outside the door of the analysis center.
One package of crackers couldn’t hurt anything, right? One tiny little package. That would be what? Two hundred calories? Two-ten? An extra half-hour on the stationary bike would knock that out.
But the Navy Physical Readiness Test was rushing toward her like a freight train. If she was going to pass the weigh-in, she needed to drop seven pounds over the next three weeks.
She’d worked out a detailed plan to reach her goal. X number of calories per day… X minutes of cardio… X number of sit-ups… She had all the variables factored, and there was no room on her fitness spreadsheet for visits to the vending machine.
At the back of the refrigerator were three zip-locks full of celery, each bearing her name in neat black Sharpie. She knew she should grab one of those. She also knew that she wouldn’t. The celery thing always seemed like a great idea, until the time came to actually eat it.
Why couldn’t some Brainiac in the snack industry figure out how to make celery taste like peanut butter crackers? She’d be all over that in a heartbeat.
She tapped the left-hand display of her operating station and called up the next page of the alert queue. Every ship in the queue fell into one of three categories. Either it was a potential security threat; or it was suspected of criminal activity; or it had departed from its expected navigational routing.
She selected the top ship on the list and windows opened automatically on her other two screens. The center display populated with data about the ship’s displacement, crew roster, cargo manifest, history of inspections, previous ports of call, scheduled ports, and numerous other details — any of which might (or might not) be significant. The right-hand screen showed a map of the ship’s geographic location, with the planned voyage track depicted in white, and an unexplained course change highlighted in red.