Cliff Ryder - The Powers That Be

The only people who looked even remotely comfortable were the police, who were interspersed with occasional small units of army personnel. They all looked well fed and content in their uniforms, and Marcus saw them detaining and questioning people who didn’t look as if they were doing anything wrong or even out of the ordinary. Once, as he watched two police officers interrogating a young black man, they both looked up, their dark eyes following him as if they knew something was amiss, as if they knew he didn’t belong there. Marcus didn’t drop his gaze, but stared at them until they passed out of view.

He leaned back in his seat, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He’d known going in that things wouldn’t be pretty. While growing up, Cuba had been the subject of many conversations around the dinner table, and he had heard the arguments on all sides—capitalist, Communist and socialist. He had seen the pictures, went on the exile Web sites and even marched in a couple of lift-the-embargo protests in Miami when he had been in high school. But nothing had prepared him for actually being there, for seeing the seamy conditions that people experienced every day.

It wasn’t the fact that the neighborhoods existed, or even that the people who lived there seemed so bereft of hope.

During his years in the Rangers, Marcus had traveled to places that made Cuba look like a true paradise. He’d been to Darfur, walked through the smoldering remains of villages after the genocidal militias had swept through, slaughtering and destroying everyone and everything in their path.

At least, he thought, the majority of the Cubans still had all their limbs intact. He was also well aware that America didn’t have a glorious record of upholding human rights, either, particularly in areas where they had a vested interest, like the Middle East.

What stunned him was the idea that Castro kept claim-ing to be a progressive leader of this nation, preaching that he was helping his people in the first place, that they were still fighting the revolución despite the fact that the opposite was so obviously true. Cuba had slipped closer to capitalism as it became more dependent on tourism as its economic base. That was just fine with Marcus, since the introduction of free-market, capitalist ideas often opened doors for more democratic and personal freedoms. However, the trickle-down theory of a wider economic base improving the everyday lives of the nation’s citizens had dried up before it could even get started, leaving most of the populace still thirsty for the chance at a decent life.

Even more amazing to him was the fact that no one had ever been able to stop Castro. Marcus knew of the many attempts to destroy the man over the decades, by the U.S.

government and others, but none had ever come close to succeeding.

It’s tempting to take a shot at him myself, he thought. After all, I’m here, and it would be the one thing no one would expect. I don’t think the home office would be pleased, however.

The bus ground to a stop at the main Havana station, and everyone piled out. Marcus took it all in for a moment, the buses arriving and departing, crowds of people swarming around them. Marcus had no desire to pack himself in like cattle on a city bus, but he knew his final destination was still several miles away.

A familiar if rough-pitched rumble echoed through the station, and Marcus turned to watch a vintage Harley-Davidson Electra Glide rumble up. Its passenger, a long-limbed young woman, got off and gave the driver a long hug and kiss before picking up a small bag and disappearing into the station. Marcus walked over to the bike.

“Very nice,” he said, checking out the motorcyle. Every painted surface of the bike gleamed. “And your friend isn’t bad, either.”

The rider polished his Ray-Ban sunglasses on his shirt-tail. “She’s not my friend—she’s my sister, asshole.”

“And she’s lucky to have a brother like you to look out for her.” Marcus let his gaze stray to the bike again. “The reason I came over is that I don’t feel like sardining it in the buses, but I have to get downtown. Could I pay you for a lift?”

“Sure, sixty pesos.”

“Whoa, man, if you’re going to rob me, then at least take me to a dark alley first. All I got is twenty,” Marcus said.

“Man, that won’t even cover my gas.”

“Yeah, but you’re already out here anyway. If you head back in alone, that doesn’t get you anything.”

The biker watched two slender women stroll by, their colorful skirts swirling around their legs. “Yeah, but I could find a fine lady who wouldn’t mind the wind in her hair as she rode on the back of my hog, either. I might not even charge her, and she’d be a damn sight better looking than you!” The stranger smiled as he spoke.

Marcus laughed with him. “All right, all right, I can do thirty pesos, but that’s it.”

The biker looked him up and down. “You got a ride.

Now, where to?”

“Take me to the Plaza de la Revolución, please.”

Damason drove through the streets in a rusty Lada, the car he was forced to use after Castro had ordered all of the more modern cars—anything European and made in the past twenty-five years—confiscated for the state’s use. He thought the faded, red, 1970s Soviet-built car he was crammed into was horrible. It puttered along on a wheezing, seventy-five horsepower engine, bald tires and no air-conditioning. Damason’s head brushed the ceiling, even when he hunched over the steering wheel, and driving on the inner city’s rougher roads, he often found himself taking more than one knock as he jounced over scattered potholes.

But none of that mattered. The message he had received told him to go to a building on the corner of Placencio and Maloja Streets. On the second floor he would find a package crucial to his upcoming mission. Damason wiped his sweating forehead on his shirtsleeve. Although his army uniform would command more respect from the local populace, it would also attract attention, and that was the last thing he wanted.

As usual, traffic was light except for the buses, and he had no problem reaching the address. Like most other inner-city neighborhoods, this one had seen better days about half a century earlier. The rows of two- and three-story buildings were barren, empty shells of their former magnificence.

Damason locked the car and crossed the street, looking up and down to make sure no one was watching him.

Checking the address again, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to get to the second floor. He was impressed that the building was still standing, as its bottom walls leaned in different directions, half the roof was missing and the entire structure looked as if it was about to collapse the moment anyone touched it. Damason crossed the street and pushed aside a rotting sheet of plywood blocking the crumbling doorway. It fell with a damp thud on the litter-and-brick-strewed ground.

Sunlight streamed in through empty window frames, revealing what had been a large open room, perhaps a cantina or restaurant once. Now, there were just piles of mortar, broken rocks and moldy, rotting wood. A large portion of the ceiling was missing, and he saw more wreckage on the second floor. Spotting an open doorway at the back of the room, Damason walked over to find a narrow, gloomy staircase leading up. Kneeling, he saw footsteps in the dust on the steps. He cocked his head and listened, but heard nothing upstairs save the cooing of mourning doves. Selecting a fist-sized rock from the floor, he started up, testing each step before putting his full weight on it.

It looked as if the second floor had been an apartment before time and the elements had ravaged it. The remains of an iron-framed bed rusted in one corner under an ancient, ragged bullfighting poster. The hole he had seen from below had devoured a full third of the floor, leaving a yawning pit behind. The remaining boards creaked ominously when Damason stepped on them, and he knew he’d have to get what he came for and get out before the whole place came down on his head.