“What do you mean?” Cummings asked.
“Clyde—”
“Keep quiet, Harry. They know most of it already!”
“They don’t know—”
“What is it?” Costigan said. “Another—”
“Shut up, all of you!”
“Talk, Costigan.”
“No, never mind.”
Silence again. Marvin, his mind working frantically, could not for the life of him imagine what Costigan had been about to say. And what had Clyde meant? What the hell was a Coast Guard cutter? It was just a little boat, wasn’t it? Like a pleasure boat?
“Well?” Clyde said. His eyes were still shut. He was not looking at anyone in the room, but Marvin knew unmistakably that he was talking to Costigan.
“Well?” he said again.
“You’ll never make it,” Costigan said.
“No?”
“Never. She’s too small a ship.”
“She’s big enough.”
Costigan was shaking his head. “What has she got aboard her? Seventy-five men? A hundred men?”
“Fifty-five,” Clyde said. “Less when we get through with her.”
“And what’s your armament? A three-inch gun on the bow?”
“That’s all.”
“What do you hope to do with that?”
“Just what we have to do.”
“It’ll be another disaster,” Costigan said. “Just like the Bay of Pigs. Go tell Trench to forget it.”
Clyde shook his head. “Too much at stake.”
“Like what?”
“The future.”
“Of what? Cuba?”
“Of the hemisphere.”
“Sure,” Costigan said. “You’re going to change the situation with a two-bit gunboat and a handful of men. Forget it.”
“We’re going to change the situation by steaming straight into Havana Harbor, and—”
“Sure, past the Cuban radar—”
“—shelling the city.”
“—and past the Cuban torpedo boats and jets. You’ve got one hell of a chance to succeed.”
“Are you serious about this?” Cummings asked suddenly.
“The man wants to know if we’re serious. Tell him, Harry.”
“I ain’t in this,” Harry said. “When Jason asks about this, I had no part in it.”
“Yes, we’re serious, goddamn you,” Clyde said.
“You’re going to invade Cuba?”
“Did I say that?”
“It sounded to me—”
“Nobody said anything about invading Cuba.”
“You said you were going to shell the city.”
“We’re sure going to try.”
“The island is ringed with radar,” Costigan said. “You won’t get within fifty miles of it.”
“That’s more’n halfway there, ain’t it?” Clyde said, and grinned.
“You can’t shell Havana from fifty miles out in the Caribbean.”
“I think we might get just a bit closer than that,” Clyde said.
“They’ll still know you’re on the way. Your little raid—”
“This isn’t a raid.”
“It’s not an invasion, and it’s not a raid,” Tannenbaum said. “So what is it?”
“Herbert, keep out,” Rachel said.
“Never mind,” he answered.
“Maybe it’s both a raid and an invasion,” Clyde said. His smile widened. “Or maybe it’s neither.”
“Riddles,” Tannenbaum said.
“No riddles, Grandpa.”
“I’m getting Jason,” Harry said, and started for the door.
“Hold it!”
“Listen, Clyde—”
“You listen to me!”
“Jason said—”
“What am I doing to Jason?”
“You got no call to—”
“How am I hurting Jason, huh? What am I doing that’s so terrible, huh?”
“You know what—”
“Well, I’m tired of sitting here on my behind! Why should Jason have all the fun!”
“The fun?” Harry said, astonished.
“Yes, the fun, the fun! We sit here like a pair of nursemaids while he—”
“Fun?” Harry said again.
“Why doesn’t he take all of us with him?”
“Somebody has to stay here, you know that.”
“What for?”
“To keep these people here.”
“Kill the goddamn people,” Clyde said. “Do it now! Why wait?”
“Gangsters,” Tannenbaum said. “They grab a boat, they talk about kill—”
“A cutter, Grandpa,” Clyde said. “A cutter is what we grabbed. Not a boat.”
“You’ll never make it,” Costigan said again. “There are dozens of Navy ships between here and Cuba. The United States doesn’t want an invasion. Those ships’ll—”
“We know all about the dozens of Navy ships between here and Cuba. You think any Navy ship is going to challenge a Coast Guard cutter answering a distress call?”
“Who’ll buy that?”
“Who won’t? A few hours after the Mercury steams out of here, she’ll radio Miami and say she’s answering an SOS about fifty miles northwest of Havana.”
“Miami won’t believe it,” Costigan said.
“Why not?”
“They’ve got planes in the air. They’ll send one down to check.”
“You’re assuming Miami knows the cutter is in our hands, which Miami doesn’t. Miami simply thinks the captain of one of her ships is radioing to say he’s answering an SOS from—”
“That Miami never heard?”
“It happens all the time,” Clyde said. “Radio signals are unpredictable.”
“They’d still send the plane down.”
“No. All the planes are back at Dinner Key by sundown.”
The room was silent for a moment. Costigan frowned, and Samantha suddenly covered his hand with her own.
“Those Navy destroyers would challenge her,” Cummings said.
“Why should they? They know there are Coast Guard ships on patrol between here and Cuba. They wouldn’t give her a second thought. But even if they did, she’d say she was answering a distress call. Search and rescue is the Coast Guard’s job — not the Navy’s.”
“The cutter simply lies to everybody, is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“There are some people she can’t lie to,” Costigan said.
“Who?”
“The men on the Cuban patrol boats.”
“She won’t lie to them.”
“She’ll just tell them she’s heading for Havana, huh? She’ll—”
“No. She’ll just open fire on them.”
“That’d bring out the jets,” Costigan said. “That’d be the end of your little party.”
“No. That’d be the beginning of our little party.”
“They’d blow you right out of the water,” Cummings said.
“Yes.”
“What...?”
“They’ll blow us right out of the water,” Clyde said. “They’ll blow a United States Coast Guard cutter out of the water.” He smiled. “That’s an act of war, isn’t it?” he asked softly.
13
They’ll have to kill everyone here, Luke thought.
If they don’t, their suicidal plan is in danger of collapsing.
Their only hope is that the United States and the world will believe a Coast Guard cutter has been attacked and sunk by Cuban forces while answering a distress call. If the masquerade is less than complete, if the tiniest doubt exists about the genuineness of the cutter or the real identity of the men aboard her, the plan will immediately collapse.