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  The smile left Kornilov's face and his expression went dead serious. "We force the Gettysburg to crash-land in Cuba."

  <4>THE GETTYSBURG

  November 3, 1989

  San Salvador Island

  <<49>>

  Pitt was going mad. The two days of inactivity were the most agonizing he had ever known. There was little for him to do but eat, exercise, and sleep. He had yet to be called on to participate in the training exercises. Hourly, he cursed Colonel Kleist, who bore Pitt's onslaughts with stoic indifference, explaining with tight-lipped patience that his Cuban Special Forces team could not assault Cayo Santa Maria until he pronounced them fit and ready. And no, he would not speed up the timetable.

  Pitt worked off his frustration by taking long swims to the outer reef and climbing a steep rock face whose summit looked out over the surrounding sea.

  San Salvador, the smallest of the Bahamas, was known to old mariners as Watling Island, after a zealot buccaneer who flogged members of his crew who did not observe the Sabbath. It is also believed to be the island where Columbus first stepped ashore in the New World. With a picturesque harbor and a lush interior blued by freshwater lakes, few tourists gazing at its beauty would have guessed it contained a huge military training complex and missile observation installation.

  The CIA staked out its claim on a remote beach called French Bay at the southern tip of the island.

  There was no road linking the covert training center with Cockburn Town and the main airport. The only way in or out was by small boat through the surrounding reefs or by helicopter.

  Pitt rose shortly before sunrise on the morning of his third day on the island and swam strongly for half a mile, and then worked his way back to shore, free-diving among the coral formations. Two hours later, he walked from the warm water and stretched out on the beach, overwhelmed by a surge of helplessness as he stared over the sea toward Cuba.

  A shadow fell across his body, and he sat up. A dark-skinned man stood over him, dressed comfortably in a loose-fitting cotton shirt and shorts. His slick, night-black hair matched an enormous moustache. Sad eyes stared from a face wrinkled from long exposure to wind and sun, and when he smiled his lips barely moved.

  "Mr. Pitt?

  "Yes."

  "We haven't been formally introduced, but I'm Major Angelo Quintana."

  Pitt came to his feet and they shook hands. "You're leading the mission."

  Quintana nodded. "Colonel Kleist tells me you've been riding him pretty hard."

  "I left friends who may be fighting to stay alive."

  "I also left friends in Cuba, Mr. Pitt. Only they lost their battle to live. My brother and father died in prison merely because a member of their local block committee, who owed my family money, accused them of counterrevolutionary activities. I sympathize with your problem, but you do not have a monopoly on grief."

  Pitt did not offer condolences. Quintana struck him as a man who didn't dwell on sorrow. "As long as I believe there is still hope," he said firmly, "I'm not about to stop pushing."

  Quintana gave him an easy smile. He liked what he saw in Pitt's eyes. This was a man who could be trusted when things got tight. A hardnose who did not know the definition of failure.

  "So you're the one who made the ingenious escape from Velikov's headquarters."

  "A ton of luck played a heavy role."

  "How would you describe the morale of the troops guarding the compound?"

  "If you mean mental condition, I'd have to say they were bored to the gills. Russians aren't used to the draining humidity of the tropics. Overall they seemed sluggish."

  "How many patrolling the island?"

  "None that I could see."

  "And the guardhouse at the front gate?"

  "Only two."

  "A canny man, Velikov."

  "I gather you respect him for making the island appear deserted."

  "You gather right. I would have expected a small army of guards and the usual Soviet security measures. But Velikov doesn't think like a Russian. He designs like an American, refines like a Japanese, and expedites like a German. The man is one shrewd operator."

  "So I've heard."

  "I'm told you met him."

  "We've had a couple of conversations."

  "What was your impression of him?"

  "He reads the Wall Street Journal."

  "That all?"

  "He speaks better English than I do. His nails are clean and trimmed. And if he's read half the books and magazines in his library he knows more about the United States and its taxpayers than half the politicians in Washington."

  "You're probably the only Westerner running around loose who's ever seen him face to face."

  "It was no treat, believe me."

  Quintana thoughtfully scraped one toe in the sand. "Leaving such a vital installation so lightly guarded is an open invitation for infiltration."

  "Not if Velikov knows you're coming," said Pitt.

  "Okay, the Cuban radar network and the Russian spy satellites can spot every plane and boat within fifty miles. An air drop or a landing from the sea would be impossible. But an underwater approach could squeeze under their detection grids with ease." Quintana paused and grinned. "In your case the vessel was too tiny to show up on a radarscope."

  "My inventory of oceangoing yachts was marginal," Pitt said lightly. Then he turned serious. "You've overlooked something."

  "Overlooked what?"

  "Velikov's brain. You said he was a shrewd operator. He didn't build a fortress bristling with landmines and concrete bunkers for one simple reason-- he didn't have to. You and Colonel Kleist are bleeding optimists if you think a submarine or your SPUD, or whatever you call it, can penetrate his security net."

  Quintana's eyebrows narrowed. "Go on."

  "Underwater sensors," explained Pitt. "Velikov must have ringed the island with sensors on the sea floor that can detect the movement of a submarine's hull against a water mass and the cavitation of its propellers."

  "Our SPUT was designed to slip through such a system."

  "Not if Velikov's marine engineers bunched the sensing units a hundred yards apart. Nothing but a school of fish could swim past. I saw the trucks in the compound's garage. With ten minutes' warning Velikov could put a security force on the beach that would slaughter your men before they stepped foot out of the surf. I suggest you and Kleist reprogram your electronic war games."

  Quintana subsided into silence. His precisely conceived landing plan began to crack and shatter before his eyes. "Our computers should have thought of that," he said bitterly.

  "They don't create what they're not taught," Pitt replied philosophically.

  "You realize, of course, this means we have to scrub the mission. Without the element of surprise there isn't the slightest hope of destroying the installation and rescuing Mrs. LeBaron and the others."

  "I disagree."

  "You think you're smarter than our mission computers?"

  "I escaped Cayo Santa Maria without detection. I can get your people in the same way."

  "With a fleet of bathtubs?" Quintana said sarcastically.

  "A more modern variation comes to mind."

  Quintana looked at Pitt in deep speculation. "You've got an idea that might turn the trick?"

  "I most certainly have."

  "And still meet the timetable?"

  "Yes.

  "And succeed?"

  "You feel safer if I underwrote an insurance policy?"

  Quintana sensed utter conviction in Pitt's tone. He turned and began walking toward the main camp.

  "Come along, Mr. Pitt. It's time we put you to work."

  <<50>>

  Fidel Castro sat slouched in the fighting chair and gazed pensively over the stern of a forty-foot cabin cruiser. His shoulders were harnessed and his gloved hands loosely clutched the heavy fiberglass rod, whose line trailed from a huge reel into the sparkling wake. The dolphin bait was snatched by a passing barracuda, but Ca
stro didn't seem to mind. His thoughts were not on marlin.

  The muscular body that once earned him the title "Cuba's best school athlete" had softened and expanded with age. The curly hair and the barbed-wire beard were gray now, but the revolutionary fire in his dark eyes still burned as brightly as it did when he came down from the mountains of the Sierra Maestra thirty years ago.

  He wore only a baseball cap, swimming trunks, old sneakers, and sunglasses. The stub of an unlit Havana drooped from one corner of his lips. He turned and shielded his eyes from the brilliant tropical sunlight.

  "You want me to cease internacionalismo?" he demanded above the muffled roar of the twin diesels.

  "Renounce our policy of spreading Cuba's influence abroad? Is that what you want?"

  Raul Castro sat in a deckchair, holding a bottle of beer. "Not renounce but quietly bring down the curtain on our commitments abroad."

  "My brother the hardline revolutionary. What brought on your aboutface?"

  "Times change," Raul said simply.

  Cold and aloof in public, Fidel's younger brother was witty and congenial in private. His hair was black, slick, and closely trimmed above the ears. Raul viewed the world from a pixie face through dark, beady eyes. A narrow moustache stretched across his upper lip, the pointed tips ending precisely above the corners of his mouth.

  Fidel rubbed the back of one hand against a few drops of sweat that clung to his eyebrows. "I cannot write off the enormous cost in money and the blood of our soldiers. And what of our friends in Africa and the Americas? Do I write them off like our dead in Afghanistan?"

  "The price Cuba was paid for our involvement in revolutionary movements outweighs the gains. So we made friends in Angola and Ethiopia. What will they ever do for us in return? We both know the answer is nothing. We have to face it, Fidel, we made mistakes. I'll be the first to admit mine. But for God's sake, let's cut our losses and return to building Cuba into a great socialist nation to be envied by the third world. We'll achieve far more by having them copy our example than by giving them our people's blood."

  "You're asking me to turn my back on our honor and our principles."

  Raul rolled the cool bottle across his perspiring forehead. "Let's look at the truth, Fidel. We've thrown principles overboard before when it was in the best interests of the revolution. If we don't shift gears soon and vitalize our stagnating economy, the people's discontent might turn to unrest, despite their love for you."

  Fidel spat the cigar stub over the boat's transom and motioned to a deckhand for another. "The U.S.

  Congress would love to see the people turn against me."

  "The Congress doesn't bother me half as much as the Kremlin," said Raul. "Everywhere I look I find a traitor in Antonov's pocket. I can't even trust my own security people anymore."

  "Once the President and I agree to the U.S.-Cuban pact and sign it, our Soviet fair-weather friends will be forced to release their tentacles from around our necks."

  "How can you finalize anything when you refuse to sit down and negotiate with him?"

  Fidel paused to light a fresh cigar brought by the deckhand. "By now he's probably made up his mind that my offer to sever our links with the Soviet Union in return for United States economic aid and open trade agreements is genuine. If I appear too eager for a meeting, he'll only set impossible preconditions.

  Let him stew for a while. When he realizes I'm not crawling over the White House doormat, he'll lower his sights."

  "The President will be even more eager to come to terms when he learns of the reckless encroachment by Antonov's cronies into our government."

  Fidel held up the cigar to make his point. "Exactly why I have sat back and allowed it to happen.

  Playing on American fears of a Soviet stooge figureheading a puppet regime is all to our advantage."

  Raul emptied the beer bottle and tossed it over the side. "Just don't wait too long, big brother, or we'll find ourselves out of a job."

  "Never happen." Fidel's face creased in a cocksure smile. "I am the glue that holds the revolution together. All I have to do is go before the people and expose the traitors and the Soviet plot to undermine our sacred sovereignty. And then, as President of the Council of Ministers, you will announce the cutting of all ties to the Kremlin. Any discontent will be replaced with national rejoicing. With one swing of the ax I'll have cut the massive debt to Moscow and removed the U.S. trade embargo."

  "Better be soon."

  "In my speech during the Education Day celebration."

  Raul checked the calendar on his watch. "Five days from now."

  "A perfect opportunity."

  "I'd feel better if we could test the President's mood toward your proposal."

  "I'll leave it to you to contact the White House and arrange for a meeting with his representatives during the Education Day festivities."

  "Before your speech, I hope."

  "Of course."

  "Aren't you tempting fate, waiting until the last moment?"

  "He'll take me up on it," said Fidel through a cloud of smoke. "Make no mistake. My gift of those three Soviet cosmonauts should have shown him my good intentions."

  Raul scowled. "Could be he has already sent us his reply."

  Fide I turned and glared at him. "That is news to me."

  "I didn't come to you because it was only a blind guess," said Raul nervously. "But I suspect the President used Raymond LeBaron's airship to smuggle in an envoy behind the back of Soviet intelligence."

  "Good Christ, wasn't it destroyed by one of our patrol helicopters?"

  "A stupid blunder," confessed Raul. "There were no survivors."

  Fidel's face mirrored confusion. "Then why is the State Department accusing us of imprisoning Mrs.

  LeBaron and her crew?"

  "I've no idea."

  "Why am I kept in the dark on these matters?"

  "The report was sent but not read, like so many others. You have become a difficult man to reach, big brother. Your attention to detail is not what it used to be."

  Fidel furiously reeled in the line and undid the harness to the fighting chair. "Tell the captain to turn the boat toward the harbor."

  "What do you intend to do?"

  Fidel cut a wide smile around the cigar. "Go duck hunting."

  "Now? Today?"

  "As soon as we get to shore I'm going to hole up at my country retreat outside Havana, and you're coming with me. We'll remain secluded, taking no calls and meeting with no one until Education Day."

  "Do you think that wise, leaving the President hanging, shutting ourselves off from the Soviet internal threat?"

  "What harm can it do? The wheels of American foreign relations turn like the wheels of an ox cart.

  With his envoy dead, he can only stare at a wall and wait for my next exchange. As for the Russians, the opportunity isn't ripe for them to make their move." He lightly punched Raul on the shoulder. "Cheer up, little brother. What could possibly happen in the next five days that you end I can't control?"

  Raul vaguely wondered too. He also wondered how he could feel as chilled as a tomb under a blazing Caribbean sun.

  Shortly after midnight, General Velikov stood stiffly beside his desk as the elevator doors spread and Lyev Maisky strode into the study.

  Velikov greeted him coolly. "Comrade Maisky. An unexpected pleasure."

  "Comrade General."

  "Can I offer you any refreshments?"

  "This damnable humidity is a curse," replied Maisky, wiping a hand over his brow and studying the sweat on his fingers. "I could use a glass of iced vodka."

  Velikov picked up a phone and issued a curt order. Then he gestured toward a chair. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

  Maisky fell wearily into a soft leather chair and yawned from jet lag. "I'm sorry you weren't warned of my coming, General, but Comrade Polevoi thought it best not to risk interception and decoding of your new instructions by the U.S. National Security Agency's listening facilit
ies."

  Velikov raised his eyebrow in a practiced motion and gave Maisky a wary stare. "New instructions?"

  "Yes, a most complicated operation."

  "I hope the chief of the KGB isn't ordering me to postpone the Castro assassination project."

  "Not at all. In fact, I've been asked to tell you the ships with the required cargoes for the job will arrive in Havana Harbor half a day ahead of schedule."

  Velikov nodded gratefully. "We can use the extra time."

  "Have you encountered any problems?" asked Maisky.

  "Everything is running smoothly."

  "Everything?" Maisky repeated. "Comrade Polevoi was not happy about the escape of one of your prisoners."

  "He need not worry. A fisherman found the missing man's body in his nets. The secret of this installation is still secure."

  "And what of the others? You must know the State Department is demanding their release from Cuban officials."

  "A crude bluff," Velikov replied. "The CIA hasn't a shred of proof the intruders are still alive. The fact that Washington is demanding their release from the Cubans instead of us proves they're shooting in the dark."

  "The question is, What are they shooting at?" Maisky paused and removed a platinum cigarette holder from his breast pocket. He lit a long, unfiltered cigarette and exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling.

  "Nothing must delay Rum and Cola."

  "Castro will speak as promised."

  "Can you be sure he won't suddenly change his mind?"

  "If history repeats itself, we're on firm ground. El jefe maximo, the big boss, hasn't turned down a chance to make a speech yet."

  "Barring accident, sickness, or hurricane."

  "Some things are beyond human control, but I don't intend to fail."

  A uniformed guard appeared with a chilled bottle of vodka and a glass resting in a bed of ice. "Only one glass, General? You're not joining me?"

  "Perhaps a brandy later."

  Velikov waited patiently until Maisky had consumed a third of the bottle. Then he took the leap.